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What is this? What creation of deviltry is this?” 

(See page 161) 




All for a Crown 

OR, THE 

Only Love of King Henry the Eighth 

(CATHERINE HOWARD) 


BY 

ALEXANDRE DUMAS 

AUTHOR OF 

“ D’Artagnan the Kingmaker,” “ The King’s Gallant,” “ The Regal 
Box,” “ Monte Cristo,” Etc. 


3 s' 


translated/by 

HENRY L. WILLIAMS 



NEW YORK AND LONDON 
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 



Tlif l7xi4A%T o7 
CONGRESS, 

Txwt; CdPicf RtCEWED 

mtl U T90* 

Copvtsiovn- pjmtp> 

A %Ct'. / 0 -/f 0 7- - 

CUIR* (X- XXp No. 



Copyright, 1902 
By STREET & SMITH 


All for a Crown 


Ml 


0 « 


CONTENTS 




Chapter 

I — The Longing for Life and the Longing for Love . 

II — A Bird with Wings Broader than its Nest 

III — There is no Place so Close that Discontent Cannot Lodge at 

Ease 

IV — Where Earl Dereham was Expected on His Wedding Morn 

V — Showing in what Array the Scots Came to Address the King 

of England 

VI — The Chief Trophy of England’s Might . 

VII — The King’s Confidence is a Burdensome Thing 

VIII — The Egg of the Phoenix . . . . . 

IX — The Live Fly in Amber 

X — “ Love’s a Mighty Lord” 

XI — The Eternal Farewell * 

XII — Quit Not Certainty for Hope 

XIII — There is no Treasure Without Seekers .... 

XIV — What Can Counterbalance Love ? 

XV — The Breach that Love Cuts, What Can Fill? . 


Page 

9 

34 

62 

70 

85 

102 

1 10 
132 
144 

>53 

164 

177 

>93 

264 

212 


ii CONTENTS 

Chapter PagB 

XVI — Bitter to Bear, May Be Sweet to Remember . . .217 

XVII — Luckily There Were Two Keys 226 

XVIII — Live and Love Me! 241 

XIX — Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! ..... 248 

XX — In which the Queen’s Alajesty Finds a Champion and the 

King’s Justice Another 261 

Epilogue 274 


• ’ 


1 


PREFACE. 


Some wonder, naturally, will spring up during the 
reading of this work by Alexandre Dumas. For, while 
the scene is laid in England, and the plot and characters 
are thoroughly English, it is remarkable that it was de- 
vised and written by a Frenchman. 

A genius is “of all countries and no time.” It may only 
be that, with the peculiar gift of talent to absorb identi- 
fiable features of a period, a country or a personage, the 
author embodied himself with his scene as an actor with 
the part which he loves. 

“Catherine Howard” was evolved in Dumas’ “study- 
ing” days, when he was widening his scope by learning 
English. To add to his relish in exploring this ground, 
celebrated English actors came to Paris and displayed 
Shakespeare in his native effulgence to the marveling 
Parisians. At once Dumas recognized the incontestable 
supremacy of this bard over all ; he hastened to be versed 
in him, translating “Hamlet,” which is a standard version 
on the French stage. As for “King Henry VIII.,” 
though there is only a line borrowed in this novel, the 
whole is impregnated with the Shakespearean spirit. Yet, 
nowhere in Shakespeare is to be found Catherine How- 
ard. Though English as a daisy, there is none of the tor- 
tured elegance of the same “Margueritized.” She is Du- 
mas’ own. 

He apologizes for the fiction as ultra-romantic, because 
he fantastically embroidered on the set ground. He 
chooses to make “Bluff King Hal” the front figure, and 
not the “Terrible Tudor,” the wrestler with Francis, the 


ii 


PREFACE. 


knight who would have fought hand-to-hand Philip of 
Spain or Charles of Germany; the Defender who became 
the Defyer of Rome — one likes all the better the genial, 
blunt, rough- jesting, royal Falstaff, who thought, in his 
declining years, of “a lass and a glass.” 

Before he was thirty, Dumas could include this off- 
spring among his ten or twelve popular successes. He 
feared, though, that his sensitiveness had outstripped his 
good sense. But, according to his own plea, one must not 
exact ripe fruit from the garden in spring, or that the 
cathedral to be roofed in the architect’s span; an author 
may gain his end with activity of resources without his 
wings being full-fledged. 

Impressed generally by English dramatic art, Dumas 
was individually imposed upon by that colossus, the 
Eighth Henry. Singular amalgam of a great business 
man, fond of outdoor sports, but of the dance, too, a 
warrior who would shut himself up in the study to com- 
pose theological tracts — browbeating yet courtly, mag- 
nificent and yet greedy, subtle among statesmen and yet 
letting pert minxes like “Nan” Bullen and wary old 
widows like Catherine Parr “pull the pelt over his eyes.” 

Dumas likes this portly, unctious Mercutio, and saw, 
apart from tradition, new and entertaining phases in him. 
Shakespeare was not so free, knowing that the original’s 
daughter would review the likeness. 

In history, Catherine Howard trips by as a captivating 
lady’s maid, dressed, tutored and danced by a courtier 
clique. Here we see a girl so fair and bright that she 
stood above the common herd as naturally as one choice 
flower overtops the garden. When the revelation comes 
that an obscure witch foretold that she would stand on 
the throne — as many a pretty girl has been told by as 
many a cunning old witch — she readily accepts it. She 
has merely to compare with her predecessors to find her- 


PREFACE. 


iii 


self more winsome, and she determines to win. Catherine 
aims at the crown. Atalanta lost her race because she 
stopped to pick up the shining lures — Catherine races on 
over hearts, gratitude, honor, renown, purses. A comet 
does not detain her — she will grasp the Crown of Eng- 
land ! An earl is a drag — it is “Caesar or nothing!’’ with 
her. 

But this makes a defined character that we can under- 
stand, and we must admire the consistency and persist- 
ency. 

It is because her course finishes high and her advance 
to it is unflagging that the reader has to keep step with 
her and rejoices at the victory, though her means and 
her use of them are other things. 

Dumas gives full measure, and the drop-over is the 
moral, which the beauty who runs such a race cannot 
elude. Under the Tudors there was no gap between the 
floor of throne and scaffold. As the gilded usher showed 
the favorite into the palace, so the ensanguined headsman 
showed the disgraced queen into the dungeon. 

But if Vanity and Ambition are chastised, so is the in- 
human tyrant. He who thought all frailty “woman-like” 
suffers by falling under the despotic sway of a too in- 
fatuating love. The injured rival’s dagger spared him, 
but only that he might undergo “the complaint called 
jealousy, to which the gout is a gentle stroking.” 

The trio of Beauty, Love and Desire is eternal ; but 
there is novelty in its encompassing figures. It stirs one 
to see the chivalric young Sussex beard the Lion of Eng- 
land and gallant a queen in distress ; to study those “men 
of iron,” the sturdy Scots whom the palace could not 
daunt, the lovelorn Princess Margaret, and the credulous 
seeker of immortality who could read all fates — but his 
own ! 

In short, though you may criticise the tribute, being 


iv 


PREFACE. 


by his own son — as if one genius could not speak truth of 
another — Alexandre Dumas is “the only Frenchman com- 
ing near to Shakespeare, by his inventiveness, power and 
variety; having genius without arrogance, and profusion 
without effort, and a prodigious fancy reaching the four 
cardinal points of art : Tragedy, Comedy, Tales of Love 
and Historical Romances.” H. L. W. 


ALL FOR A CROWN 


CHAPTER I. 

THE LONGING FOR LIFE AND THE LONGING FOR LOVE. 

The reign of King Edward the Eighth of England had 
some five or six years yet to run. 

His country presented much of the aspect of one where 
an earthquake has made people still timorous about the 
possibility of any structure not crumbling from the shak- 
ing received. There were no enterprises undertaken 
without strong possibility of immediate result. The old 
shook their heads ominously at any project, and the young 
had their hands stayed on the tiller, the plough and the ax. 

The Thames upper-waters showed their apathy and 
disinclination to move out of the trodden ways excepting 
for daily bread. The stream was shallow from two years’ 
drouth and the back-waters and side-flows were aban- 
doned. Wild birds, animals and vermin alone profited; 
never were the glades and still waters so full of live 
creatures, to whom the poacher was unknown. 

Castles, were being built out of the pulled-down abbeys 
and manor houses for a nobility of the purse; graziers, 
merchants and wool-combers who could lend the royal 


10 


Longing for Life and Love. 

treasury bullion were beginning to erect "houses” in 
brick and stone as on parchment. 

One of the two men who appeared on this scene might 
fall under the ban comprising practicers of the black art. 
But the other, certainly, was above the threats of the 
laws against the poor and vicious. 

These two, in this first week of June, had come from 
London in the regular barge plying between the Bridge 
and Mortlake. Thence they had taken the carriers’ van to 
Richmond, where they hired a boat again. They paid 
like princes, or, at least, the young man did, as the purse- 
bearer, but they seemed not to wish to attract attention. 

On landing at Hampton “the Happy” they struck off 
upon the grass-grown riverside boldly, as if they cared 
not how far they might go astray, and without the slight- 
est fear of being waylaid by the lurkers, who feared less 
a man with a purse than the constable, with his whip, 
halter and stocks to back him. 

The elder of the pair was aged ; yet he carried himself 
like one buoyed up by some feeling rendering years no 
burden. It is true he held a pilgrim’s staff, but it was 
as little a leaning-pole as a weapon. He did not seem to 
be otherwise armed, but, no doubt, under his flowing 
and full gown, furred as became a rich citizen or a pro- 
fessional gentleman, he might have the long knife used 
to carve at meals, or even that short sword called a 
“hunting companion.” 

His shoes were easy, cut and puffed as if, like his royal 
master — for he was of the household of King Henry — he 
suffered from the gout on account of standing too much. 


1 1 


Longing for Life and Love. 

He had a comfortable wool cap, slouched over one ear 
and eye, and adjusted as the sun slanted. On his face, 
not overmuch wrinkled, were scars and flecks, as if caused 
by burns ; perhaps, sparks out of the furnace, or splashes 
of acid left these tokens of meddling with fire and cabalis- 
tic elements. 

If he slouched his cap to shield his eyes, it was pure 
habit. They needed no other screen than the shaggy, 
white brows and the depth of the hollows in which they 
sank, but they blazed like a fire in a cave. His age con- 
sidered, their luster was remarkable. This ardency was 
that of a lamp constantly nourished. What could the 
white-poll be sustained by? One beyond loving man, 
maid, or lucre, perhaps, he seemed no miser; he could not 
care for revenge, for he had an amiable and winning air, 
though solemn. It was hope, but for what? 

His companion had not a third of his age ; he could not 
be thirty. He was extremely fair, and pointed in many 
ways back to an ancestry surpassing the Norman line; 
for, though these conquerors of Saxon England were 
from the North, they had, by inter-marriage, obtained 
coloring in complexion and hair of the French from the 
South. His golden hair, a little lank and dull, rolled from 
under a smart velvet cap, but it covered with its elegance 
the steel lining betrayed by a point coming down over the 
forehead to guard the nose; foppish gallants used this 
precaution, not to have that chief feature shorn off by the 
cutting sword, much in vogue, in the hands of highway 
rovers. His short Spanish cloak, of brocade, reversed 
not to reveal some badge or emblazonment denoting at- 


12 


Longing for Life and Love. 

tachment to some known house, was so sumptuous as to 
come within the law forbidding such fantastic shape 
This let his arms, sinewy rather than strong, have 
full play. In his belt, on opposite sides, so as to balance 
each other, was a hunting-sword and a pistol of exquisite 
workmanship, so that it could readily be managed with 
one hand ; it had a match wound on a wheel so that the 
fired end could be presented at need to the powder-pan. 
Its powder-horn, of so-called unicorn, chiseled with art, 
balanced a dainty bag, containing bullets and the instru- 
ments for keeping the little weapon in order. But, as if 
he feared that, alone, he required ample defense as a 
precious man to his master or himself, at his back, reach- 
ing to his heels, where his half-boots bore marks of spur- 
straps, hung from a stout shoulder-strap one of those 
formidable double-handed, long swords going out of use. 

He scanned the brake, the fen, the mead, and the mir- 
ror-like pools and running water as if he expected dryad, 
nymph, or naiad to peer out at him and cry : 

“At last you have found her !” 

The fact is, Ethelwolf, Earl of Dereham, had his hands 
full of fortune’s choicest boons, but he did not know that 
he yearned for some one to share them. He loved with- 
out a responder. His fate hung in the void. 

A strange pair, therefore, age and youth, hopeful and 
wistful — alike only in chafing at a wish unfulfilled. 

“What do I spy in the fading light and through the 
haze in that vista of arch-elms?” asked the young man, 
shading his eyes. “It is like a wild animal strange to our 
land !” 


Longing for Life and Love. 13 

“It is just a stone lion — the Percy lion — on a house of 
the Northumberlands.” 

“I see that now. I guess where we are. But yonder, 
along the river, a huge bulk — like an elephant from the 
East?” 

“A stranded barge. We shall see it nearer presently. 
It is my mark.” 

The beauty of the scene made the younger man halt. 

There is a period when the slanting sunbeams give the 
leaves and the sward an odd and charming green tint. 
The underside reflects and alters the tone of the whole 
blade or petal. 

“Hold, Fleming,” said Lord Dereham. “Are we never 
to be at rest? That barge, as you call a mere mound of 
blackness, is rather off than by our direct line. The river 
winds here in its shallowness like a wounded snake. It 
darkens so quick! I fear. me that I shall wade over my 
half-boots or step into a quagmire ! The path is but a 
gray ribbon on dark green velvet !” 

“If you wish to rest, my lord, as well here as yonder. 
Anywhere will come midnight.” 

“Oh, I am far from tired. Only, it is mean and irk- 
some for one of the fifteen earls of England to be buried 
alive and in a quicksand !” 

“Have no fear ! I know the road. Besides, your long 
sword, like my staff, laid across the pit would enable one 
to recover firm land. But I have read your futurity, 
lord! You are not to perish in that ignominious grave 
of nature’s formation.” 

“Let us go on to the destination !” He resumed the 


14 Longing for Life and Love. 

pace, keeping in with his guide. “I can discern nothing 
now. I should not wonder if I were on estate of mine 
own, but it might be the Stygian pool. Only, what shall 
we do to kill time here or there, awaiting the unhallowed 
hour when the other creatures may appear ?” 

“Keep on ! There we will rest !” 

“If only one might bite or sup!” grumbled the young 
man, evidently very animal after the long jaunt. 

The dark made the old leader, in his flowing robe, little 
noticeable; Ethelwolf was tempted to seize the hem, not 
to lose touch. He was a son of the castle, the tilt-yard, 
the lighted gallery, the throne-room itself, and this lone- 
liness weighed on him. He had hunted, strayed, fought, 
gamed, but always in goodly company. 

Not superstitious more than his compeers, yet this as- 
sociation with a newcomer of fame began to taunt him, in 
connection with the increasing gloom. He could too 
easily fancy the goblins, will-o’-the-wisps and fairies with 
which these meadows and copses were peopled by the 
common folk. 

Now and then the old alchemist glanced over his shoul- 
der, to make sure that his follower was not halting — he 
knew that he would not give up the errand. 

The low hump, as of a mastodon, suddenly loomed up 
fairly. After a turn or two, almost as if they were cross- 
ing at the liberal bend, they arrived. A splendid lawn, as 
if made by man, opened before them, intersected by the 
river, tolerably straight, but widening, so that it remained 
shallow. On the bank rose, lumberlike, a barge, half of 
its side completely blocking the path. In fact, the few 


Longing for Life and Love. 15 

wayfarers, unable to surmount such an obstacle, had 
traced a half-circle to avoid it. 

This hulk had settled down in the mud by its ponder- 
osity. The inclination of the deck remained, but the face 
was to the north, and not to them. It had been richly 
painted and gilded, but time had beaten off the ornaments, 
so that the surface was flat, and worn away the sheen and 
the coloring. Slime had mounted, with its fine green de- 
posit from the ooze, and dyed the side. Woodbine had 
climbed up to the gunnel and mingled its white threads of 
the dead growth with its yellow, new shoots. Wet leaves 
had been blown against it, and stuck and dried. In the 
windows, sprigs had lodged; there was a swallow’s nest 
in one. This mass of neglect gave a saddening impres- 
sion, and the young man felt that sinking of the heart 
which the sensitive feel before a wreck. 

The guide walked away from the bank, to the relief of 
his follower, who feared being mired. A broken spar or 
two, on which sailcloth had been heaped to rot, were cov- 
ered with lichen and leaves. He motioned his companion 
to be seated, and leaned on his staff, his back to the de- 
serted bark. 

“What you did was right as for diet. Now, did you 
take heed to enter your room with the left foot first, but 
always to leave it the right foot foremost? Every day, 
mentally, without moving your lips, did you say the prayer 
in cabalistic language which I taught you?” 

To each query the man nodded, whether seen or not, his 
eyes fixed on the barge, which to him seemed a kind of 


1 6 Longing for Life and Love. 

mausoleum, it so hinted of departed pride,' show and 
“bravery.” 

“Did you bathe in that filtered water in which was dis- 
solved the peculiar powder prepared by me ? Did you dry 
yourself with the stone-flax towels I supplied, cleansed 
(mark you !) by being laid on the smokeless embers of a 
hollywood fire?” 

“I have strictly done all that, Father the Fleming! The 
diet appeased my turbulent feelings. I should have been 
impatient but for that, I do not doubt. It is quite tran- 
quilly, though my longing is strong, not to a false and 
fleeting delight — such as I have frequently felt — but to 
any of the Last Four Things of this world !” 

“They may come in this hour, one when they cost an 
eternity’s useless repining !” 

“Tush ! I dread not the death, which we all must meet ; 
the purgatory, which few are so good as not to have to 
pass through, even if shortly; purgatory — what it is to 
one who has passed in the court where the vacillating 
Henry sent a martyr to the pyre on the same day for one 
creed, and another, as well, for being of no creed ! But, 
as for the best of the four things — Paradise ! I wish to 
taste a little of that here ; but I am not selfish — like Adam, 
it will have no gusto unless woman opens the pearly 
gates !” 

“My lord,” replied the wizard, “that is to be decided 
this night. You will have but to ask your will of the 
spirit we raise! It may be able — no, of that I have no 
doubt — it may be willing to raise for you the ideal of your 


Longing for Life and Love. 17 

worship — or the old lures — Helen the Incomparably Fair, 
Cleopatra, Lais, Thais ” 

“A truce! Do not let us go so far as them! A fair 
Englishwoman for a true Englishman ! The one fore- 
ordained for Dereham is sure to be such, if your spirits 
have supernal sense ! You can divine one’s inmost wishes 
— surely, they are not lower than their master ! No, no, I 
do not believe they will simply present to me out of the 
bushes a Madge Wildfire, out of the fen a Robine Good- 
fellow, out of the woods a Titania ! No, out of that hulk 
rather let us see a boatman’s daughter ! There are some 
beauteous wenches on the riverside !” 

The old man shook his head, and his beard waved ; he 
might be indignant that his pupil and a noble should have 
such earthly appetites when he talked of supernatural 
idols. 

‘‘My lord,” said he, in a grave tone, as if the atmosphere 
oppressed him and this levity pained, “you see there a 
memorial of the brevity of human love and beauty ! That 
galley was constructed on the reach over there, for the en- 
tertainment of Queen Ann Bullen. Many hundreds of 
hedgers and ditchers lost their lives in the noxious reeks 
of the waterway, which they dredged out that this galeass 
might flounder for a short run. I think I can see the 
young coquette on that day when she was displayed to the 
court as the royal choice! She was clad in white satin, 
embroidered with gold and blue silk. She had the sem- 
blance of a crown on her head, which glittered in the un- 
clouded sun. She sat on that deck there, polished like 
ivory for her dainty feet in fur slippers. She had twenty 


1 8 Longing for Life and Love. 

ladies around her, her successor among them ! You could 
not see the water for the boats full of courtiers and their 
servants, decked in their liveliest and costliest. They 
flocked around the barge. On the banks, where we are, 
crowds of huntsmen, verderers, bow-bearers, ‘regarders/ 
woodwards, and such, dressed alike in green and scarlet, 
and with the rose in their caps, waited the signal to go 
through a mock hunt, for which, during a month before, 
deer and rabbits and a hundred red squirrels from Nor- 
way, were let loose and fed, to accustom them to the lo- 
cality ! There were six hobbelars, horsemen of the fleet- 
est, constantly at her beck for her letters to be carried and 
purchases made, and their bridles and spurs jingled like 
music as their steeds impatiently resented the curb ! 

‘The king was a little delayed, for he was no longer 
young, and tarried a trifle over the dressing table ! And 
I marked how her little foot beat with impatience ! Ah, 
my lord, she was beating at death’s door with a near 
foot !” 

“I suppose this memory of yours is to put me in the fit 
mood for your deviltries, eh ?” grumbled Dereham, whom 
the fast, as well as this delay in the damp, had irritated. 

“They had a repast on that deck, the king beside her ; 
and at night she came to the edge there, sat on a cush- 
ioned chair, he laughingly holding it — since it slipped — 
and the whole woods flared with pitchpots and torches ! 
There was a flambeaux dance ! There was music ! All 
was so radiant and gay ! 

“Next morning I strolled through the scene ; gypsies and 
other vermin were picking up the crumbs and roasting the 


•9 


Longing for Life and Love. 

fragments of a mangled deer, at which she had let fly an 
arrow — though it was a concealed archer in the hazel over 
there who really brought it low — the meat she disdained 
battened a mongrel — but I vow she would have given up 
that day of queenly splendor to have been able to enjoy 
such a carrion meal! She was put to death, you know, 
my lord ” 

“I was at Courtenay College then ! I have seen only 
the Queen Jane Seymour!” answered Dereham, sulkily, 
and yawning. 

The old man, with his cat’s eyes, spied something half 
overgrown with ivy; he stepped over to it and picked it 
up; it looked, in the dusk, like an iron skull. It was a 
basket of metal in which tallow and tow had burned. 

“Do you see, my lord — a cresset ! It figured in that 
illumination to the queen of a day! Now it is but a few 
crossing bars of old iron — so fiery a meteor then ; and she, 
star of that day, a bagful of moldering bones, with the 
head out of place !” 

“None of this ! I am ready to see raw heads and rat- 
tling bones!” said the young noble, only half jestingly. 
“Go on with your preparations, for I doubt not that you 
require some paraphernalia for your conjurations!” 

Thus reproved, the old man drew off a little to a level 
place. He gazed long and steadily at the sky, where half 
its expanse was too veiled for certain stars to be descried. 
But, ascertaining the true east as well as the north, he 
stuck twigs in to mark the lines intersecting, and pro- 
ceeded with his making ready. 

The earl looked at the barge; since he had heard the 


20 


Longing for Life and Love. 

story of its being so out of place in the shallow waters, it 
had a redeeming light through fancy. Once again he 
could imagine it in its glory, with that frail, evanescent 
beauty at the prow, and at her back the burly form of the 
cruel tyrant. 

“Ah, me! He broke the Papal power at the neck as 
deftly as those gentle charmers!” sighed Dereham. 

A church bell struck for the hour. The sounds rever- 
berated through the woods and faded over the lea, smoth- 
ered by the mist. 

“Ten o’clock, by Chertsey Old Church !” remarked the 
magician. 

With two long elder rods, peeled so as to show white, 
added to his staff, he made a kind of tripod. 

“Only ten ! It will be a long two hours !” gaped the 
novice. 

“Patience! You shall feast after the fast!” 

Dereham glanced around, though the barge had its at- 
traction-, unaccountable to say. His blue eyes, though 
strong as such are, failed to perceive many stars streamed 
over by the quick-sailing clouds. Overhead, the wind 
whistled, without stirring even the highest trees in their 
passage. But the trees stirred in another way, as if in- 
visible but potent arms embraced them at the root and 
shook them steadily. In the copses, voices seemed to say : 
“Hush ! Hush !” 

Peewits flitted, as if startled out of their nooks. A 
kestrel, swimming above in the weird light under one 
layer of cloud, pursued prey, as if in the day. 

“A feast?” sneered the young man, bitterly. “Unless 


21 


Longing for Life and Love. 

we tickle a trout under the bank, or find an eelpot, or a de- 
scendant of the squirrels turned loose to amuse the Bullen 
girl pops into my grasp, I see no such prospect. It is the 
heart of Arabia — Arabia Felix, if you like, but an inn not 
within a trumpet call.” 

The sage hung the cresset, which he had found, under 
the tripod by a chain of metal taken from around his 
waist. 

“So, ho ! Are we going to cook something ?” said the 
earl, trying to amuse himself, for he knew that the cook- 
ing was to be hell-broth ; “are we to have snail soup ?” 

The sage deigned to smile. Out of a large satchel sus- 
pended at his side he took a metal box, and from within 
that, two round cakes of small size, emitting, in the dark- 
ness, a glow as of deadwood. 

“One for each,” explained he ; “all that can be allowed 
you now. But it is concentrated. An ancient com- 
mander among the Chaldeans marched an army three hun- 
dred miles on these rations. It is manna and crushed 
locusts !” 

Dereham made a wry face, not noticed in the gloom, as 
he put it to his lips. But the odor and taste were grate- 
ful. He waited, cautiously, to see that his counselor 
swallowed the companion lozenge without jugglery, and 
then munched and gulped down his “feast.” 

Its light was unattended by heat ; but it gave a peppery 
sensation, and he said, gloomily and suspiciously : 

“I have no heir but the king, whose liege and wise- 
. worker you are, my Fleming! But, as Hal knoweth that 
he could lop off my head at any time, though as unde- 


22 


Longing for Life and Love. 

servedly, perhaps, as Ann Bullen’s, I risk your being or- 
dered to make away with me with this odd pellet !” 

“A drug? Fatal? To you, my lord, best patron I 
have next to his grace !” reproached the Fleming. “Did 
you not see me eat the like ?” 

“Was there not a king who fed on poison, so as to be 
proof ? It’s a fool rat who has not two outlets to his hole 
— a fool magician who prepares a bane without its coun- 
terbane !” 

By this time the balsamic pill had dissolved. Lord 
Dereham felt a warmth, accompanied with mental enliven- 
ment. He became oblivious to the damp and the murki- 
ness; the vision of the short-lived queen, on her gilded 
barge, returned; only, the whole scene became like that 
of her zenith. 

He began to see things surrounded by gold and violet 
glories; the old sage appeared floating over the ground, 
and edged with brightness. He was puzzled over what it 
meant ; the tracing of a circle around the tripod with his 
finger spread as if it could leave a mark on the turf. It 
looked as if this pointing caused the grass to be blasted, so 
that a ring was evident, like those called “the fairies’ 
dance.” 

“What are you doing, you fiends’ director?” cried out 
Dereham, puzzled, feeling as if the circle was continued 
in his brain in endless convolutions. “Seeking gout- 
mushrooms for the king ?” 

“I am tracing the magic inclosures in which we must 
stand not to be the prey of those we ought to defy and 
command.” 


23 


Longing for Life and Love. 

The other stood up; he was erect enough, but swayed 
a little ; the narcotic in the pill made him believe this slight 
unsteadiness was a great one — that he was spinning 
around. 

“You are hollowing out a death pit ! Here, am I to be 
carried off by your imps? What have you poisoned me 
with? Woa! It is getting hot enough to fuse that 
church bell which is ever humming in my ears ! I shall 
wrench away that stick from the two serpents twining 
about it and thwack you for your part in this plot against 
a Christian ! How the very earth totters ! But I — I 
stand firm ! Yet is this you, or a score of Flemings? By 
the grace of St. George, are you a hundred, or have I a 
hundred eyes?” 

He staggered toward the magician, who, with a pitying 
smile, steadied him within the ring, where he detained 
him. This ring must have been vaguely remarked by 
him, for he began to dance the stately step of the period at 
court, snapping his fingers, as if possessing castanets, and 
humming between his closed lips. 

The necromancer let him go, watched that he would not 
fall, and, with dried rushes and twigs, made heaps of fire- 
wood around them all' shaping the lines as a triangle, but 
at the same time inclosing the circle. 

Dereham smiled to the four quarters, saluted a partner, 
and sang, in his young, mellow voice : 

“Strong, strong is wine! 

Stronger the king ! 

Truth is divine; 

But love — love is the stronger, strongest thing!” 


24 


Longing for Life and Love. 

“The old man glanced at him, stooping, making the 
heaps regular. He had made nine of them. 

“Never before has he tasted the bhang!” muttered he. 
“He experiences the intoxication, I the goodness from it. 
But the stupor will come, in which he will see what I sug- 
gest!" 

Indeed, the young noble’s excitement suddenly col- 
lapsed; he leaned against the staff and chuckled to him- 
self, trying to count the stars which he imagined above, 
for the clouds had blotted them all out, on his fingers, 
twitching as with commencing tetanus. He drew him- 
self up like a sovereign, and haughtily said : 

“Draw near with the trophies ! You have battled long 
and successfully — I knight you all, Sir Newt, Sir Toad, 
Sir — all that were base are exalted, all that were high are 
ennobled as my peers !” 

The Fleming rose, laughing, in a low tone, and made a 
profound bow to the imaginary monarch, saying : 

“May it please your dread majesty to loan me your 
falchion? I would carry out your sentence to lop off the 
traitor’s limbs !’’ 

Without helping him, but also without resisting him, 
the dazed man allowed the other to unhang the long 
sword. With this, he went over into the woods, a blasted 
clump, where he used the blade to hack off very dry 
boughs. To the confused vision of the victim of the East 
Indian weed, he was hewing giants and dislimbing them. 
He clapped his hands and waved them over his head. He 
had thrown off his cap, and the steel inside showed within 
the cloth as it rolled, 


Longing for Life and Love. 


25 


“Ha ! It is the queen’s head !” said he, lowering his 
voice. “Poor day’s sport ! It was not lusty enough to 
sustain the crowd, ah! The crown of England is a 
weighty woe ! A heavy ornament to the wretch who 
would fain seize that dangerous gaud!’’ 

The Fleming returned, and added the wood to the 
heaps. 

More than one chapel bell was heard to the east. The 
wind came through the treetops now, sounding as on harp 
strings. 

The fog, torn from its flimsy moorings, began to move 
and mass up. These bodies had uncouth shapes to the 
young man, still impaired in clearness of sense. 

“Advance, banners !’’ shouted the earl, waving his hand, 
as the magician returned with the second load. “Hurry 
and hurry, for Captain Christmas is bringing up the rear 
battle with the creams, the cakes, and the custards ! Let 
him creep into the brush, where we will leap out and fall 
upon him !” 

“Stand where you are, my lord, on peril of your soul !” 

“I, the king, will lend a hand to replenish the larder ! I 
am famished, by holy will, for dabbling in witchery. I 
am hungered! I could sink my majesty and beg scraps 
of a trencher-scraper !’’ 

“He has so fasted that he will see my visions !” said the 
magician. “This is as planned.” 

Under his gown he had, slung to his girdle, one of those 
bottles of fine clay, bound with wicker. He brought it 
forth, and pleasantly repelled the other’s eager hands. 


2 6 


Longing for Life and Love. 

“No, no ! To drink is to take death !” said he, severely. 
“It is not wine; it is terebenthinum!” 

“Drink, drink ! I will give of my blood, drop for drop, 
for drink !” whimpered Dereham. 

“Wait and see what you would have fought me for !” 

He sprinkled his piles of firing with this essence. A 
smell of tar pervaded the immediate air, and was rapidly 
blown away. 

“Ah !” said the youth, inhaling, rapturously. “Me- 
thinks this is the nectar of the gods, transported to us on 
the breath of ./Eolus !” 

Fleming drained the spirits on the last pile. 

The smell seemed to calm the other ; he closed his eyes, 
after a vain effort to keep them open, grasped the staff, 
with tightening grip, and dozed, rocking. 

He was not conscious of the hand at his girdle, which 
removed his pistol, with infinite precaution. He was used 
to firearms, for he put it in state to explode a charge. 

In the northeast, a sheet of lightning broke and suffused 
the inky curtain ; it was one of those discharges which 
surround the true thunderstroke, not visible here. 

As if he had caught the fire, the old man, exploding 
the powder in the pan, transferred the flame to the fire- 
heap saturated with the pine essence. Letting this burn 
up, which it did with the perseverance of fire in high wind 
but combating with the damp in air-dried wood, he sud- 
denly darted to where something white caught this flicker. 

An animal of some size, horse or cow, had been brought 
down the stream ; the barge had embayed it, and it had 
been reduced by eels and other natural scavengers to a 


Longing for Life and Love. 27 

skeleton ; washed clean here and there, some of the 
bleached bones shone in this fitful fire. 

The Fleming reached it, and, without any of the com- 
punction most persons showed for handling such relics, 
picked out the great long skull, with a few grinning teeth 
and two ribs. With these, he returned to the fire; he 
spread the flame from one heap to another, till all were 
burning. Then, the young man beginning to awake, he 
crossed the bones under the tripod and set the skull in the 
hollow itself. 

Dereham opened his eyes, after the pause of insensibil- 
ity of which he did not know the duration, and perceived 
the ghastly objects in the fiery inclosure. 

“Cling to me, boy, and closely — the trial hour is come !” 

The martial spirit of the peer returned. The sight of 
the pistol made him think of resisting human foes. 

“My pistol !” said he. “My long sword ! Let us con- 
tend with them !” 

There was rushing of the gale, sounding like an ad- 
vance of horse and foot. 

The fires burned low, and, uniting, formed almost an 
unbroken circumvallation. The smoke was intensely 
black, thick, and aromatic, and kept down the flame. 

The earl compressed his forehead with his hands; his 
eyes glared wildly, as he let them fall. He looked straight 
before him to weather quarter. 

The storm was raging in the distance. 

“It is Arthur’s chase !” said he, in a respectful tone, 
hanging on to the old man’s arm. “There is a king at the 


28 


Longing for Life and Love. 

head, who looks like the Wild Huntsman of Windsor 
Range ! It is the devil !” 

“Pooh, pooh!” returned Fleming. “The Prince of 
Darkness is not so black as he is painted, or else the ink 
that Lucifer threw on him would not have made its mark. 
Have calmness; for courage, I know, you do not lack. 
You are soon to see the object of your ardent quest.” 

Then, as if the farther operations could not be helped on 
by his uninitiated companion, he began to chant one of 
those incantations common to his clan at the time. Com- 
posed of sonorous syllables, the more striking ones were 
easily held by the unlearned to be names of spirits of 
power, usually malignant. The artful wonder-worker let 
his voice, used gruffly, rise and fall with the stress and 
rest given his phrases, seeming in harmony with the sur- 
ging and irregular gusts. 

Then sounded the midnight chimes, coming brokenly, 
to which was added a watchman’s voice, brought from 
very far, so as to seem out of the hollow of the tempest. 

“Twelve of the night, and Lord be merciful to all Chris- 
tian souls !” 

Earl Dereham had remained standing, firmly enough, 
but stupefied. He tried vainly to comprehend the rigma- 
role of sounding words, but they came out of unknown 
tongues. The rising tumult did not daunt him. He 
looked into the eye of the storm; that light spot around 
which, in a wrestle of two winds, one on a lower level, the 
utmost turbulence whirls while preserving this center un- 
touched. This luminosity was directly over the center of 
the barge. He stared at this cavity in the vapor, as a 



(See page 29) 


“Who is there?” 












29 


Longing for Life and Love. 

criminal on the scaffold looks at the open road in the mob 
at his execution, where alone the courier with the pardon 
could gallop up. 

The astrologer, in his jumble, became aware of this loss 
of attention, and glanced at him. 

He, too, became spellbound, like his dupe. 

It would seem that the electricity overcharging the air 
had enkindled the phosphorus in the dead wood to which 
the neglected hulk was turning. The deck-edge toward 
them glistened, with an unknown light, more blue than 
red, more white than yellow. 

A figure was certainly there; it was robed in white, in 
a long, flowing garment, deriving shape alone from the 
contour of the wearer. This was beautiful and exquisite. 
No statuary of the ancients had carved marble into such 
agreeable lines, and the curves were each fascinating. 

The garment had a kind of hood shrouding the coun- 
tenance. One could imagine, rather than perceive, the 
eyes glittering with the color of the magic fires. There 
could also be imagined that this enrapt gaze comprised 
terror, horror, and amazement — but the whole thing was 
too celestial for these emotions not to seem incompatible. 

Suddenly, the hanging arms rose, and were folded 
across the bosom. A voice, also too sweet to be human, 
abruptly challenged, with the fearlessness of innocence, 
afraid of neither earthly nor superhuman creatures : 

“Who is there?” 

“By all the demons, from Ahrimanous to Zorobabel !” 
burst out the exasperated magician — “a human voice ! A 


30 


Longing for Life and Love. 

human voice has spoken outside of the magic ring — and 
the spell is broken ! May all the curses ” 

“Curse that apparition, and— — ” Dereham seized up 
the staff from the earth, upsetting the tripod, cresset and 
bones — “and I ” 

“Nothing will come to our summons now!” and the old 
conjuror wrung his hands so pitifully that he must have 
believed in his craft, or was a sublime actor. 

“But this apparition ” 

Dereham flung down the staff, but before he could leap 
over the circle of fire the other seized him, with a grip be- 
yond anticipation of his strength. 

“Don’t leave the barrier !” almost screamed he, bearing 
on with all his weight. “You will be snatched away to 
perdition ! That is but a living lure — a snare ! Don’t 
.step without !” 

But Dereham dashed him down, leaving in his convul- 
sive grasp fragments of his clothing. He trod down one 
of the fires, and bounded toward the barge. 

But, on the instant, as if there were spirits in the am- 
bient air, a whirl of the storm descended upon the space. 
A great wall of rain came up and fell, as if a wall stopped 
at the foot and toppled over. Fleming was cast down, 
and groveled amid the swamped-out embers. Dereham 
felt caught, as by all the witches at a Sabbath, and lost his 
footing, as if he had Mercury’s wings without the art to 
employ them. He was carried toward the river — which 
boiled; the osiers were beaten flat, like a carpet; he was 
laid on them, and, luckily, caught at the pliant rods. The 
trees whipped ; the branches were detached and hurled at 


Longing for Life and Love. }i 

other boughs, which they broke off. The level ground 
was covered with such rubbish. 

Fleming rose, struggling with his gown, blown about 
his head and neck. 

‘‘The rain, the rain !” muttered he, smothering. “It is 
like as if we had brought on the second Deluge, prophe- 
sied by the school of Nicomaque !” 

He got his head free, and, cowering down, tried to look 
out around him through the downpour. 

“But he must not be lost, under my guard !” moaned he ; 
“he is the king’s favorite — as his own brother ! They are 
linked by the stars ! I have read that ! Oh, my lord ! 
Ethelwolf, where are you ?” 

He floundered toward the river, impelled by the gale. 

“Confound the man !” muttered he ; “he is too brave to 
call for help !” 

He reached the bank, or where the bank was, three feet 
under the seething water. He thought he saw a strug- 
gling form. 

“But he must be saved ! King Henry will make me an- 
swer life for life !” 

Tearing off his raiment, staggering and stumbling, slip- 
ping and sliding, on he went, now in the water and recov- 
ering his foothold, then wading desperately, with barely 
power to keep erect. He followed the body, which no 
longer resisted the course. Dereham was stunned. 

’Tis the lethargy ! The drug binds him as a corpse !” 
moaned the conjuror. “I rendered him unable to stand 
the current! Without that, he would “shoot” London 


32 Longing for Life and Love. 

Bridge, and come up, smiling, before the Palace at Green- 
wich !” 

Like one whose life, indeed, depended upon this one 
in peril, forgetting his own incessant danger, he continued 
this mad race with the insensible body. Rarely did he 
see it ; but his instinct was trusted to ; he went on. He 
escaped a hundred modes of death, for the boughs fell like 
arrows in a battle. The lightning added a new terror, for 
its bolts rived the oaks and elms, and made him fear that 
he would be a target to the elements at whom his experi- 
ments had often mocked. 

At last, he fell, exhausted. But, while praying, in his 
last moment of despair, he saw, by the light of the weir, 
kindled by the lightning, but soon extinguished by the 
rain, the body of his young companion. He dragged him- 
self to it with his final strength. It was on the dam, em- 
bedded in the rushes; he laid himself by it, as if to die 
there or to try to warm it to life. 

He repeated, in attitude, the old father and son in the 
old master’s picture of the Deluge. 

About four o’clock, he sat up. Cold aroused him. He 
felt in an inner pouch for a stimulant, which he carried in 
a case of flexible leather, and drank, greedily, before try^ 
ing to employ the same medicament upon his friend. 

“What cross luck !” grumbled he. 

There was a gentle, rain falling, which, after the pour, 
was a boon. 

The thunder rolled on the Surrey hills. 

“All was going so well !” 

He parted the young man’s teeth, with a choking move- 


Longing for Life and Love. 33 

ment used by surgeons, and inserted his finger, dipped in 
the alcohol. 

Seeing that this unlocked his jaws and suppled his 
tongue, he smiled, at last. 

“I did not miss a line in that incantation, which cer- 
tainly is effectual. I believe it more efficacious than that 
of the Tyanian Magus, and it would have raised the Chi- 
mera, who answers all demands, if — ah, he is coming to ! 
I thank the stars !” 

Revived by his infinitesimal but powerful resuscitant, he 
dragged his prize to the firm land. 

“What was it we raised !” The voice was womanly — 
the figure astral ! “Zounds ! Am I wrong in my figur- 
ing ? Why may not the line which crosses the king’s and 
becomes entangled be — not Dereham’s, close as they are — 
but another’s — the other’s ? Oh, let me be disembarrassed 
of this young man, and I will discover who that appa- 
rition is among women !” 

Taking a strong dose of his elixir, he shouldered the 
body, and carried it, with the ease of a miller carrying a 
sack of meal, to the first inn by the waterside. 

Changing his clothes, but refusing breakfast, he came 
out, after recommending the lord to the host and his hos- 
tler. He halted in the road, musing : 

“She stood on that abandoned barge !” said he. 
“Strange and ugly nest for that beauty! And yet, the 
butterfly emerges from a soiled and bedraggled grub!” 


CHAPTER II. 


A BIRD WITH WINGS BROADER THAN ITS NEST. 

The air of neglect and loneliness about the barge and 
upon it was studied. Had the two adventurers had the 
supernatural vision one of them, at least, pretended, he 
would have seen that the barge was not only inhabited, 
but habitable. 

It would almost have seemed as if the interior had not 
been dismantled when the bark was given up to the va- 
grants. What had been pillaged was replaced. 

The roomy, if inelegant, stools, armseats, and settees 
were heaped with cushions ; the thick and fluffy arras 
hung so as to prevent any drafts through cracks of the 
beams, and to include the light from lamps burning fine 
oil. Pictures of some value were on the walls of the one 
great cabin, the inside of which was divided into three 
compartments by hangings. 

The dressing table and toilet accompaniments were in 
silver, tortoise-shell and ivory, and, while old, were good 
art specimens. 

In the east end was a kitchen, but the cooking was 
slight, as food was brought from Chertsey, or another vil- 
lage, by a trusty man-servant. 

The woman always in attendance on the mistress of 
this strange abode was a north-country “body,” about 
fifty, but hard as iron and with set features, expressing 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 35 

more shrewdness and firmness than good humor; but she 
was tender in her devotedness, which was extreme. 

On the morning of the day when the two men came to 
Dullmarsh for their unhallowed ceremony, the barge, open 
to the west by the hatches in the deck being drawn off, 
was suffused with the sunshine and the balmy breath off 
the innumerable natural beds of wild flowers — flowers cul- 
tivated since out of all resemblance to their original hues 
and shapes, and also losing the rich aroma of early days. 

In this perfumed and golden atmosphere, the mistress 
was standing by her table, looking out, discontentedly, at 
the scenery to the west, that incomparable upper vale of 
the Thames. Had she been peering on “the frosty Cau- 
casus,” the disgusted curl of the lips would not have been 
more contemptuous. 

She was the beautiful creature who was later in the day 
to interrupt the conjuration and seem to call the storm 
upon its ministers. 

In the divided-off interior, the servant-woman was dron- 
ing, in a voice scarcely intelligible, from her teeth being 
worn down to the gums by diet of harsh oatcake, a mac- 
caroni of old border ballads, of which this fragment came 
to the young woman’s ears, though unheeded, because it 
had no novelty : 

“Whether a lord or but a laird, 

Truth, ’tis but little that she cared! 

’Twas e’er she replied: ‘Good sir, let be! 

If ever I have a man — Blue-cap for me!’ 

There came a Scot, in a blue Glengarry — 

‘That is the man for whom I tarry.’ ” 

But the listener, eager to find fault with anything, re- 


3 6 Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

sented the incongruity in the sentiment and the singer’s 
own prejudices. 

“Hypocrite that it makes Dame Kennedy out to be!” 
said she, with playful bitterness; “nobody could be more 
grudgeful against the Scots, bigoted Lancashiran that 
she is !” 

The old woman entered, with a large silver waiter, on 
which was neatly set out a cold meal, with meat, fish, 
some parsley, and a mound of fresh butter, flanked by 
white flour cakes, done in a ring of silver still confining 
their puffed-up sides. The whole was appetizing. But it 
would appear that the maid understood the caprices of her 
mistress as to eating, since she had added to the jug of 
ale a bottle of wine, which, by its cork being intact in 
its cobwebbed neck, showed that it was genuine and long 
preserved in a cellar. 

She put all on a sideboard, having a flap-leaf, which she 
raised so that the lady could sit up to it. 

“Now, Mistress Catherine,” said she, with cheerfulness, 
though her woodeny voice could not express much sweet- 
ness, “fall to ! You were again passing a sleepless night : 
How late we are ; it’s that Hugh, dawdling in coming from 
the lodge. He says that, since you turn aloof from the 
tidbits of his wife’s devising, she has not heart to cook, 
and he none to carry the cakes which you spurn ! The 
sun is well upon the hills !” 

“The sunrise was magnificent !” Catherine yawned, 
without trying to hide it behind her long hand. 

The dame opened the bottle with a butler’s care, and 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 37 

aptly filled a silver-gilt goblet. The scent was delicious, 
and made her mouth water. 

“There, that is splendid wine ! The king is lucky to 
drink a better ! Drink, for good wine rejoices the heart !” 

Catherine sipped of the liquor, which encouraged her to 
take about half. 

“Ah, who could resist that?” said Kennedy, gladly. 
“That’s the buckler in the strife of virtue against for- 
tune !” 

“Finish it, Kennedy, and give me only that crust of 
cake!” 

Dame Kennedy looked at the lovely countenance, and 
sighed herself at the eyes being red, the cheeks slightly 
sunk, and the lips quivering with nervousness. 

“I grant it is weariness of the same old story that pulls 
down your strength. But I, who came out of the cold, 
bleak north, may well wonder at your tiring of this 
enchanting land — rich, green and mellow ! There are 
flowers here which should banish tears from any eyes !” 

“Surely, woman, I should laud it, if I saw it for the first 
time ; but to view it all day of every day in the year upon 
years ! One must tire of the sweetest bell, since it has 
but the one note.” 

“Ah, little Lady Catherine, I could continue to view 
it for twice your span of time, and still wish it would bless 
me to my last gaze out of my worn eyes !” She corked 
the bottle and with her rough hand smoothed the broken 
wax upon the mouth. “But I am a poor creature, too 
lowly to waste my scanty time in wishing and fancying, 
but still less in fretting and fuming. I find my fill of glad- 


38 Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

ness in things within my reach, and I do not risk my 
neck standing on precarious footing to grasp at what is 
beyond me/’ 

“Oh, you with no aspirations have no grief !” 

“No grief, little lady? Ah, child, to see your house burn 
over the heads of your two babes, and nothing left unburnt 
but the sill where the blood of your slain goodman soaked 
it so that it would not become ashes ! Ah, that was a con- 
tented man, too, whose only prayer, like mine, was ‘All’s 
well.’ Rest him !” 

“Ah, dame, you are near the dying of the day — I at the 
dawn ! I can take no more interest in the things peopling 
the limited field around me than a bird does in fishes !’’ 

“I don’t know — a kingfisher ” 

“You know what I mean,” returned the dame, testily. 
“At least you can go to the villages and hear the gossip — 
gather the news. I am cooped up here, as it were, a 
prisoner.” 

“Not a prisoner — you are in a cage, because — because 
there are hawks about and you would be exchanged into 
a real prisoner, most like.” 

“Ah, the wine has unlocked your rigid tongue!” cried 
the girl, triumphantly. “Dear dame,” she went on, with 
an irresistible voice, “now we are coming to it. Why am 
I cooped up here ?” 

Dame Kennedy set her mouth firm and shut her eyes 
briefly. 

“Still, you won’t tell ? Ah, it was by a slip only that I 
learned where we are! At least, we are near London — 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 39 

the imperial city ! Ah, how contradictory to be so lonely 
here, while over there ” 

The woman grinned, for the direction was not accurate. 

“Somewhere is the teeming town of thousands !” 

Kennedy went on clearing away the untouched break- 
fast things. 

“It seems to me in the sunset, in the summer light- 
nings,” continued Catherine, looking off on the horizon, 
“that I have descried the multitudinous spires and steeples 
and pinnacles of church, tower and steeple, over there, like 
a sheaf of spears, amid which palaces and castles are 
embedded. Oh, it must be glorious ! gorgeous ! Am I 
ever to taste of that plenty’s cup ?” 

Kennedy made a sympathetic grimace, as she bore away 
the trayful. 

“Have you been in London ?” 

Kennedy returned, having opened the bottle of wine 
again, for her lips were wet and red. 

“No ; but I have lived in Derby !” 

“Derby ? A molehill !” sneered the lady. 

“I am not sure of that, please ye ! Derby has a brook, 
and what is the Thames but a large brook ? Derby has a 
stone bridge, and London Bridge is only a trifle longer ! 
Derby has ” 

“Then, you have, like I, seen nothing, not seeing Lon- 
don ! Oh, to have a home in London !” 

“Oh, you will have a home in London, surely ! It’s an 
old saying — the chicken is bred in the country, but goes 
to London to be — eaten !” 

“Saints forbid it ! Eaten, indeed !” but she smiled. 


40 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

“You cannot make yourself a tough morsel ! You are 
a tempting one! Yes, you will be wed, one of these 
blessed days — when we have a new king !” 

“Why not under the present king?” 

It was clear that the dame was garrulous beyond her 
custom ; indeed, never had the quasi-prisoner seen her so 
wrestling with some powerful mandate, which had kept 
her reticent. She tried to increase this melting mood. 

“Why may I not be mated to some one, providing a 
home in London, under King Henry ?” 

The old woman fumbled with her cap-strings, undoing 
and tying them up, nervously. 

“Do you believe in soothsaying?” replied she, with a 
question — “you, who believe lately in nothing?” 

“Oh, I am not such an infidel as all that,” said Cathe- 
rine, pleasantly, wishing to keep the other affable. “I be- 
lieve what you tell me, at any rate ! Whom else do I see 
to speak with ?” 

“Well, it was prophesied by a canny creature — the Wise 
Woman of Derby — in a word, a crabbed callet — but spoke 
the truth, as many a bit of evidence verified her there- 
after !” 

“What! What! The prophecy matters, not the 
mouthpiece ! What said she of me ?” 

“Oh, you were a babe ! They brought her to you, and 
she dropped on her knees to you, in your little bunk in the 
wall ! She thanked her stars that she had been led to say 
her say over you! You were fated to be lovely among 
women, proud among the great, loved widely, hated 
widely, too ” 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 


4i 


“That would be envy ! Go on !” 

“In a few words, you were destined to wed loftily, 
nobly, richly !” 

“The gates to the altar are golden for me?” She 
clasped her hands, and her whole lineaments were radiant. 
Her eyes became like gems. The witness of this trans- 
figuration was almost grateful that she could impart so 
much joy. 

“Oh, Dame Kennedy, I could kiss you ! I shall revere 
you as my mother ! I don’t know as I care to learn more 
than this ! I shall be rich, noble, high-placed ! I thank 
you, voice of the Fates ! You are an old precious !” and 
she embraced the dame, heartily. 

She looked around, to give the harbinger a present, as 
was the usage. 

“Well, I do not see how I can now reward you fittingly. 
But, if a tithe of this comes true — not that I expect less — 
you shall inherit all I have at the present holding!” 

“The Wise Woman never spoke astray!” resumed Ken- 
nedy, gratified at the impression. 

“Ah, at last you are one of those rare ones who speak 
with unveiled words ! Listen to me now ! If I should 
win a rich and noble mate, I — I will go and live on the 
Thames’ bankside, in a palace of our own — his palace, 
Kennedy ! There will be a garden to saunter in, large 
as” — she opened out her arms, as to embrace the entire 
landscape — “large enough to tire one out with the stroll 
before dinner ! There shall be a whole stable of horses to 
ride, and bear my horse-litter ; and, by the water gate, shall 
rest, for my bidding, such a gallant galley, ample as this, 


42 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

and far more resplendent than when it was upbearing the 
poor Queen Ann ! Over the fens we shall go hawking, 
with falconers and pages and squires !” 

“How you rattle on, like a bladder full of peas !” 

“But you should still be with me, dame ! You are not 
one of the kind of friends so easy to find — who find fault ; 
you should find out something in the way of pleasure for 
me every day, and we should share the new delicacy to- 
gether V’ 

She paused, looked at her nurse, roguishly, and whis- 
pered : 

“Bring back the wine and some game pie ! I feel that 
I must feast now. You have made this day a holiday. I 
won’t fast upon it. Ah, everything will have its flavor to- 
day now. How gleeful am I that you have spoken out !” 

Dame Kennedy returned into the recess for the victuals. 

“She does not ask after her parents, or her kindred ! 
This foretelling has alone penetrated her brain. I don’t 
believe I was wise to let her know, what she must, some 
time, know ! Ah, share her bounty and good fortune is all 
very well; but the Wise Woman coupled the gold cup, 
with bitter lees, in the draft. Must I share that, too?” 

However, she returned with the tray and the wine. 

Catherine had continued to expand in the ecstasy so 
easily excited. She seemed to see the full beauty of the 
landscape, and her pale cheek was deeply colored, her lips 
plumped out, and wore a regaling smile ; her eyes danced. 

“Yes, you shall still dwell with me, Kennedy ! And 
you, being rustic, should accompany me when I go to 
choose a country retreat — a bower, with garden, fruitful 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 


43 


and verdant, flowering like the mead where Venus trod — 
with the sheep on the lea, and red deer in the brake ! We 
should meander there, along a more crystal stream than 
this, while my brave husband should be warring for the 
king! I will be the castellaine — the lady in court and 
yard ! A lady ? Look, ye, Kennedy ! I should have but 
to say : ‘Do you this, or that,’ and my will would be exe- 
cuted !” 

She stalked up and down, trailing her morning gown 
like a court dress and tossing her head. Her extravagant 
gestures and laugh frightened a pair of martins away 
from the opening where they came every morning to have 
the fragments of the meal, usually disdained. 

“This is all very fine, but out of place in a hungry girl !” 
said the practical waiting-woman. “Pray you, sit down 
and eat this time. The breakfast will be the noon 
munchon.” She cut the pasty for her and poured out the 
wine. 

“Drink with me, good dear! This is a festival, I tell 
you ! So feels a young lordling, I guess, coming into his 
own !” She ate ravenously, and drank two cups of wine, 
laughing hysterically all the while. 

“So I am cooped up here because a prophetess tells us I 
am to be married highly ? Odd, is it not ? Better to have 
put me in a convent, to learn what beseems a lady meet 
for a lord !” 

“Have a care! The prophecy said that all depended 
on your outliving the king ; it was said ” 

“What was said?” seeing that her informant, in spite of 
the generous Portugal wine, was hesitating. 


44 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

“That if you married in this king, the Eighth Henry’s, 
reign, ill would betide you !” 

“Oh, dear, how provoking ! For the next king — that is, 
his son Edward, is but a boy, and puny at that ! This is 
dreadful ” 

“My dear child, these wizards are all alike. They never 
give a slice of luck without one side being spread with 
gall, though the upper was smeared with honey. Every 
boon is set against a ban !” 

“Oh, I will wait, then! To be loved — to have the 
riches, the castle, the gardens, the deer park, the sheep 
pastures, while awaiting the wedding ! Besides, the king 
is not likely to live ” 

“Sh! That is treason!” interrupted Dame Kennedy, 
looking around, in deep fear. “Your folks and my man 
lost their all for half that kind of talk !” She crossed her- 
self, and held up her folded fingers in the air to repel evil 
spirits. 

Catherine was slightly dulled ; this allusion to her fam- 
ily, whom she had not thought of, cut her as a tacit re- 
proach. 

“Oh, yes, my family,” said she, frowning. “It is be- 
cause of them that I am cooped up here — with such a mag- 
nificent future pledged me !” 

“Why, it is not they to blame, lass ! Why does the 
mother-bird, in her mysterious language, bid the nestlings 
not to peep over the edge when she leaves them reluc- 
tantly?” 

“Because they may fall out ” 

“Because the foiler is heard in the thicket!” 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 


45 


“Were they hunted — may I be sought for?” 

“You are in danger all the time ! Your father and two 
brothers were on the wrong side in the great Northern 
rising for the old creed. None of the three would fly to 
France or Scotland, but stood to the last, dying in their 
steel jackets rather than be lugged into prison and molder 
there, drawing on the three hundred gibbets which 
adorned the long line from the Peak to Robin’s Stride !” 

“You have seen this, mother?” said the girl, in an awed 
voice. 

“I saw the gibbets, with the wretches on them, tor- 
mented by the carrion birds !” and the dame, hardened as 
she was, choked a sob or two before continuing. “The 
hangman stripped the dead as their betters stripped the 
living of all their lands, flocks, herds and belongings ! It 
was a desert — such was the law ! A hard law, but it is 
the law, the judges said, some of them weeping as they 
pronounced the sentences dealing death and poverty to 
their old, old friends. Mine own humble folk were 
beaten, chevied, scourged hence — for the Tudor spares 
neither lord nor lout in his enmity ! A bloodthirsty lion !” 

“A great king!” murmured Catherine. “Was my 
father a rebel, then ?” 

“Yes, then he was a rebel ! Before that he had been a 
most faithful subject ! He had stood up for all the good 
old things! He went down under the abbey walls, the 
holy images, the sacred vessels ; I can see his pale face 
now, gashed and marred, in a cold sea of melted silver, 
which had frozen around and held him down. But why 


4 6 Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

speak of those times ? The castles are ruins, and the ruins 
themselves have perished by this !” 

“But, after these internal actions, there comes peace, 
pardon, restoration, amnesty ! The king is good-natured 
and jolly !” 

“Yes; we in the North heard of the proclamations; but 
the confiscations and slaughter went on much the same. 
That is why we old birds are not caught with chaff !” 
She smiled, dryly. 

Never had the young captive heard so much to en- 
lighten her from her affectionate jailer, close and fine as 
her countrywomen are. She blessed the juice of the 
Spanish grape. 

“Mother !” cried she, clasping her hands and seeing 
that the confidant was really sorrowing. 

“But fleeting is the glee of the cruel! The Tudors 
came in with blood on their hands ; they continue to add to 
their stain, and burden of broken limbs and racked hearts ! 
What a king! Who considers the day lost, so the court 
says, under the breath, when there has not been a noble 
humbled or a queen beheaded?” 

“You exaggerate, dame ! He is a great monarch, our 
Henry, for all these misdeeds, committed, perhaps, by his 
bad advisers, nobles jealous of one another !” 

“A tyrant, a monopolizer, a guzzler ! who has baths 
of wine like this, and never tires of wooing and wed- 
ding!” 

“Why blame him who seeks without being despairing? 
He seeks a ring set with a true diamond; so far he has 
found the nuptial ring set with false glass !” 


47 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

“What morals ! Fie ! A man should be content with 
his deserts ! A man must take his slice of the pudding 
and risk that he does not get the date !” 

“But a king! You judge him by the scale of common 
mortals !” 

“My child, he has shown us too much the verity of 
things — the shallowness of loftiness ! When he proved 
that the Pope was but a man, and that his bull could not 
overthrow the throne of England, he undid himself. We 
know that he, too, is but a man, having man’s weak joints, 
with all man’s vices ! One of these days ” 

“I shall have you imprisoned for high treason, dame !” 
and the girl shook her finger, irritated, she knew not why. 

There was a pause, but the girl was not able to remain 
long in serious thought. 

When the woman returned from putting away the eat- 
ables for the last time, she found her ward not at all 
meditative. 

She was not one to wear mourning when a festival toilet 
was on the hooks of the dressing-closet. 

She sprang up. 

“Dame,” said she, “how you have unsettled me with 
your re-echoed prophecy ! Rich, ennobled, wedded in ex- 
altation? I felt that I could not be doomed to drag out 
my life here, on this dislocated, mud-embedded barge, 
lashed by the rains, cracked by the rime, rotting in the 
sedge! Lonesome, unwholesome, discarded, shunned by 
the vilest wanderer! Between decaying wooden walls! 
What a home for a young girl with dainty tastes, over- 
filled with undefined longings; but they are not the less 


48 Wings Broader than Its Nest. 


spurring and galling, for all that ! Look, you, good dame ! 
I would rather that clothes-chest were my coffin, those 
curtains my winding-sheet, and my last bed the river bot- 
tom, instead of the predestined brass-lettered tomb of 
marble V* 

“I see that the foretelling took root ! There are days, 
and this is one, when the whimwhams of your brain 
frighten me ! ” She went up to the open hatch, where 
Catherine was letting the cool breeze fan her beating tem- 
ples, and stroked her hair, fondly. “Trust me, you ought 
not to let this fiddle-faddle prey upon you! That dwell- 
ing on the future will never bring white hairs to a quiet 
grave !” 

“My mind is my mint, nurse! My dreams now may 
mount on golden clouds ! Leave me them, dear old dame, 
since you enkindled them anew !” 

“I see that I have given you them for a close compan- 
ion, more welcome than I was!” said Kennedy, sadly. “I 
am getting short of sight, but I saw, since a twelvemonth, 
that my presence annoyed you ” 

“Never !” 

“Yes, I vex you.” 

Catherine embraced her, and held her in her arms. 

“You are indispensable to me, and unfair in that to 
yourself. But I will make a clean breast of it, since you 
have been at last frank to me, with still some reservations, 
eh ? I am not quite so miserable when utterly by myself. 
I hear, in the silence, a strange voice whispering to me. 
I see quaint forms flit around the old boat, and taunt me 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 49 

to leap over the side and follow them ! Then, the loneli- 
ness is peopled, and all is lively for me !” 

“Oh, we are spied ! Hugh and the verderers are not 
alert on the watch ! They are bribed ; they 

“No, no; my visitors are not of this world. It is all 
imaginary, but they are charming company to me !” 

“Sweet saints ! These girls can draw goldfish out of 
the cask whence I might take only herrings !” 

“Oh, the enchanting chain of figures in this round game 
of hand-in-hand ! They appear on the turf, but they 
mount up and spin around in the air — in the sky, above 
the trees, above the ether ! They form a line of splendor 
and color — a rainbow of dancing atoms, with a luminous 
trail from yonder to the heavens !” 

“This is impiety !” said the old woman, only half 
shocked. “The flame of the last day will fall on this 
house ” 

“House? Hovel !” 

“My child, nobody but Jacob climbed the rainbow, and 
an angel pushed him down !” 

“Your Scripture, dame, is like your ” 

“An angel pushed him down, I am telling you, and 
broke his leg, or rib, or something ! What do you know 
of the Bible? Not that you may not have mine without 
the asking; but you pass your time, when you do read, 
over the song books and the ‘History of Unfortunate 
Loves F ” 

“I begged for music instruments, but you would not 
let me!” 

“Ah, child, men are clever, but their spinnets and vir- 


5o 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

ginals have not yet the voice of song birds ! In vain would 
Hugh tell the passengers on the road, who might hear you 
singing and your thrumming, that it was the robin, or the 
warbler, thrumming with their wings on a dry sprig; 
they would sneak toward this boathouse, and the cat 
would be out !” 

“The cat ? I thank you !” 

“Keep off the rainbows, dear ; they are weak and flimsy 
foothold! Do not rise higher than the earth, and the 
Lord knows that it is unstable as water ! Child, fear the 
fall r 

Catherine let the woman leave her caressing embrace. 
She laid her hand on the hatch-beam, and went on self- 
communing. 

Off the river the heated air was rising; mites danced 
in the upward pillars, and atoms crossed the rays, glitter- 
ing like scales off fiery lizards. To her gaze, suddenly 
inflamed, as she had said, the rushes were peopled with 
fays, sylphs, and water-babies. The swans sailed among 
them without seeing them, like the profane among the 
guardian angels that serve without being perceptible. 
Something in the air smiled on her as on a sister. If she 
were to let down her hair, she might, she thought, draw 
up from the stranded ship’s side a young and charming 
prince ! 

Some of her babbling reached the woman, who watched 
her. 

“She has learned all the fairy tales without my teaching 
her!” she observed, wonderingly. “The novice in the 
nunnery can see in the granite effigy of a hoary martyr a 


5i 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

young gallant ; and here, Catherine, without any prompt- 
ing from my side, looks over the bulwarks each day to see 
a knight gallop up to lay his love at her feet. Happy age 
when one has but to shut the eyes to see all fairyland 
stream by as in a pageant !” 

“What do you say, Kennedy?” asked the girl, abruptly. 

“Nothing !” 

A little later, Kennedy equipped herself with hood and 
cape. She took a staff and a scrip for purchases. 

“It is market at Brentford,” said she; “I shall borrow 
the miller’s pony and go over.” 

Catherine sighed ; never she dared but once to propose 
going with her. 

“Suppose,” said she, pretending playfulness, “suppose I 
run away in your absence ?” 

“You would not do that, damsel, after what I told you; 
though that was when we first came here !” 

“I may have forgot the warning ; what was it ?” 

The woman looked very grave. 

“There are those in wait who would shoot you, mistress, 
if you were seen wide of this ‘coop,’ as you not illy call it 1” 

“They would shoot a woman — a young girl ?” 

“Yes ; as they would their own lord’s son, if it were the 
lord’s orders. And they are north country archers, out of 
Robin Hood’s country — the Never-Fails !” 

“Shoot me?” 

“It is the orders !” 

Dame Kennedy shook her head, regarding her charge 
dubiously. 

“I leave you at ease, since you cannot be lonely with 


52 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

ycur guests of fays, elves and hobgoblins ! Be queen of 
their court, little lady ! God keep you from the dart which 
flieth by day and eke by night !” 

“The dart ! Are you not misquoting the Script ? Is it 
the pestilence ?” 

“It is the pestilent Cupid’s dart, mistress ! He rarely 
misses his mark now, though he is blindfolded ! He would 
be an archer more deadly than Robin Hood if he had his 
eyes skinned !” 

At the bulwark she paused, compelled to let down a 
rope and stepladder convenient for her age and bulk, and 
then descended. 

“Draw it up after me !” she said. “Good-by.” 

At the foot of the ladder she waited till she saw it being 
hauled up, slowly, and as if reluctantly. 

“She is trying her wings !” muttered she, as she went 
to the ford and crossed, with a foot used to tarn and brae. 
“I must tell them that my watch is too much for an old 
woman. They will have to uncape the hawk; or it will 
fly; with the blinder on, and fall prey to the first who 
spies her !” 

The girl could not repose. She pulled her few books 
out, took up embroidery, only to throw it down, with Pen- 
elope’s irritation, and paced the restricted space like a 
caged fawn. 

The old woman returned at eve, without any news. She 
complimented the girl on her submission. 

Catherine did not question her, contrary to habit. She 
had scrutinized the neighborhood, wondering more than 
ever if the isolation had been caused by guardians who 


53 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

had with authority prohibited wanderers from piercing 
these marshes. She doubted the nurse; it was to her in- 
credible that her confinement was to be enforced by armed 
murderers in the hedges. How could one frail girl be 
thought to be a danger to the king? How could an old 
witch’s babble years before have weight with sensible 
people at this time? Who was she to influence a jailer 
so mighty and so rich as to keep archers and woodmen, 
as well as Dame Kennedy, years faithful, in his pay. 

Supper she partook of with unwonted zest. It seemed 
to her that she resembled the prisoner to whom the word 
has been passed that he may expect an attempt to be made 
to assist his escape. For this flight, no more weakening 
by fasting, repining, or despair, he must prepare him- 
self for unusual exertion by proper cares. 

That night was terrible. When she heard her nurse 
fast asleep, breathing stentoriously like the aged, she en- 
vied that repose. But in vain she courted it. She was 
tormented with all sorts of fancies engendered by her 
fever. She heard those many petty noises of the country 
which break rest on stormy nights. 

At last it seemed to her that — not her train of fays, 
nymphs and imps made the circuit of her prison-house — 
but something more material. There were steps and 
voices, perceptible to her tense nerves and unbearable 
until she should convince herself of their reality. 

At all other times she would have acquainted her com- 
panion with her perhaps idle apprehensions, but this time 
she rose stealthily. 

On going upon the deck, which was the roof, like an 


54 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 


Oriental dwelling, she was refreshed by the coolness pre- 
ceding the tempest and dispelling the sultriness of a thun- 
drous approach. 

Finally she spied the two figures of the alchemist and 
his adept, and she watched with more curiosity than dread 
their unaccountable actions. 

For a time she believed they might be the guards of 
which Kennedy had spoken; their proceedings resembled, 
as far as she was a judge, those of sentinels, going into 
camp. 

But never had she seen a fire in the night close to her 
abode. When the flames burst up and formed the triangle 
around the circle, and she saw the skull gleam white in 
the lurid glare of the tarry wood, she was horrified. 

The old man’s jargon recalled all she had heard from 
her nurse, full of old country superstitions, and she feared 
that she was witnessing that most abhorred of forbidden 
malpractices — an attempt to communicate with the out- 
casts of this world — the demons. 

The magician was in keeping with the mystic move- 
ments and the ghastly show. 

But the fitful light fell on his comrade, and in the in- 
terstices of the black smoke she could discern that Ethel- 
wolf was young, pleasing and handsome ! She began to 
regard him as no accomplice in the deviltry, but a dupe, 
a victim, whom perchance her interposition might save. 

Thereupon, becoming human, and inspired with hate 
for the diabolical and uncanny, she raised her cry of “Who 
is there?” and hardly was aware that the storm burst 
over her. 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 


55 


Dame Kennedy, aroused, ran up and dragged her in. 
She closed the hatch and held her in the darkness until 
the war of the elements had been spent. 

At morning the dame listened to the girl’s appeal to 
be let her see what had happened to the innocent com- 
panion of the conjuror. 

It was too late. Not even the little fires showed where 
they had burned. All was washed away or beaten to a 
level. 

She might believe it was a dream. 

She told of the sight so confusedly that Kennedy could 
but believe that the whole was some ordinary scene, mag- 
nified and distorted by the fantastic lights of a thunder- 
storm. 

Besides, the excitement of the night and Catherine’s 
exposure to the terrible rain, which had in some part 
flooded the barge, threw the poor girl into a fever. 

The nurse attended her well, for three days and nights, 
and then began to despair. She was on the point of de- 
termining to await only for the morrow. Then she would 
consult her superiors at Percy House, who gave her the 
orders for the keeping of this singular captive in this 
singular durance. 

That night Catherine became worse. Kennedy passed 
the hours in restraining her from rising and flinging her- 
self out in the weather, regardless of everything. She 
was impressed with a vision which beckoned her to fol- 
low. She spoke of a height, with a glittering summit, to 
which she was fated to climb. 

But with the cockcrow this preternatural and frantic 


5 6 Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

power subsided. She sank into an exhaustion which gave 
the old woman assurance that she could not leave her 
couch for some time. 

With a prayer, she kissed the pallid face and left the 
almost lifeless creature to seek assistance wiser than her 
own. 

She went, as was her usual course when was needed a 
gentle horse for her riding, not a triumph of equestrian- 
ism, to the miller’s. 

But on the way she called in at the cottage where Hugh, 
the verderer, chief of the watchers upon the barge and 
its valuable tenant, should receive information of the lat- 
ter’s grievous state of health. 

She met with mingled bliss and hate here. The wood- 
man was in his bed in the wall recess, having been felled 
by a bough of an elm. He was following two men of sus- 
picious mien, strangers, when the storm met him with its 
first onslaught. 

Luckily, a herbalist, seeking “simples” in the morning 
before the dew was off, was seen by the man’s wife. Called 
in, he had done up the wounds and set a bone with great 
dexterity and tenderness, the more rare when surgery was 
a blend of brutality, like the bone-setter’s and bone-rub- 
ber’s art of later times. 

The overjoyed wife, seeing her man go off into slumber 
after having howled and tossed half the night, made the 
herbalist stay to breakfast. 

Acquainted with the plight of the young lady in the 
barge-house, he volunteered to administer to her. Dame 
Kennedy hesitated. But the man’s age and venerable as- 


57 


Wings Broader than its Nest. 

pect, the kindness he had shown to the verderer, and the 
remembrance that her charge was insensible, determined 
her to have the latter doctored without consulting her 
principals. 

So she renounced her journey, not to her taste, let the 
cottager transmit the warning to the personage at Percy 
House answerable over all for Catherine being kept perdu, 
and returned with the old sage. 

It was Fleming. Recovered from the effects of his 
drenching and the fatigue, he had as soon as possible re- 
traced his steps toward the old dwelling on the Thames 
reach, bound to satisfy his doubts about the apparition 
more or less in response to his invocation being of this 
sublunary sphere. 

Accustomed to shape things to his mold, he took this 
falling in with his project with calmness. 

For all his self-command he could not wholly hide his 
amaze and admiration on seeing the lovely prisoner. He 
was not blamed by Kennedy, who would, for that matter, 
have felt insulted if her beauty had not received some 
such tribute, even from a graybeard. 

He carried with him drugs, and, after giving a potion 
in a glass of the famous wine, he left the girl, surely in 
convalescence, to her nurse. 

During the short time he stayed there he sounded the 
latter with the cunning of a grand inquisitor. On some 
points she was silent as to her ward, but on others explicit. 

As he returned to the passenger barge to carry him to 
London he meditated: 

'‘This girl is sequestrated because the same thought 


58 Wings Broader than Its Nest 

strikes good judges of the ideal of a court beauty for this 
king as myself. There is some mystery here, which co- 
incides with the trite story of her guardian, that a 
prophecy indicated she is ‘morsel for the king!’ I agree 
with her and them. With these particulars which the 
crone affords of her birth, and the rest, I will cast her 
planetary course.” 

When he reached Westminster, where he disembarked, 
he had his plan. 

“The king is in that mood when he will, to dissipate 
his fag of mind, throw himself into the wars impending, 
or be detained at home only by a strong tie. It remains 
with me, who require him in town, and not to die of a 
campaign fever in the north, so leaving me at the mercy 
of the regency around his son, to find this tie and bind 
it on him ! But I must move quickly. I mistrust that 
bold and independent Dereham. He has shrunk aloof 
from me since I saved his life. Instead of gratitude and 
a filial affection, he will not let me see him. He is study- 
ing on some conceit which puzzles me. Since he had the 
Princess Margaret fall in love with him, he is not the 
same boy !” 

He was sad, for in such old men, lonely, the affection 
of a young man almost recoups them for the absence of 
family. 

He passed the night in study; whether there were 
grounds for his calculations, or whether he in some way 
cheated himself, knowing his own ends, he adopted the 
forecast of the Wise Woman of Derbyshire. He could 
show by the plan before him that, given the nativity of 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 59 

Catherine, she was destined to cross, it would appear, the 
life-line of Henry the Eighth. 

There the revelation became vague, or at least con- 
fused. 

In the morning, having slept on his problem, being 
one of those students who solve riddles overnight, and 
awake simply to carry out the result, he dressed with 
the intention of removing" Catherine from her peculiar 
prison. 

He had sent out spies, the same as the king had con- 
tinued from the elaborate spy system of Cardinal-Minister 
Wolsey. They were instructed to discover who presided 
over this singular alienation of a girl who seemed but to 
have beauty to make her remarkable. He had a deep 
knowledge of the aristocracy, though not all his life 
in the realm, and yet there was no missing heiress, spite 
of the many breaking-ups of families on account of the 
internecine wars, answering to this description. 

He wished to be informed before he moved toward 
taking Catherine into his charge, if she would consent. 
He intended at all hazards to use the dread name of the 
king, if she were, as he suspected, a care to some high 
family. The mention of the prophecy brought the matter 
within his province, so he regarded it, and from the time 
when he considered the girl as a daughter favored by the 
stars, he resolved to aid her toward her destiny, while 
profiting by the rise. 

It must be remembered that the servants of the black 
arts, while bound not to profit directly, found many ex- 
cuses for lining their pouches indirectly. 


6o 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 

This was all very brilliant, and he journeyed up the 
river with mirth, but he experienced the dismay and 
shock of the boy who has found a bird’s nest but respects 
it unti* the inmates are grown old enough to be removed. 

The nest was empty. The bird, or birds, had flown. 

In plain language, Catherine and her nurse were gone ; 
the barge was empty and the vagrants, with their vulture- 
like scent, had learned in a few hours of the absence of 
protectors. Not only had they come in such force as to 
clear out the contents, but, Master Hugh, being an in- 
valid, the protectors, set by the unknown potentate at 
Percy House, were badly beaten by the party. 

Add to it all, as a kind of bonfire over their victory and 
retreat with the pillage, the ruffians had applied the 
torch to the royal barge. Fleming, stopped aghast *by the 
immense concourse of villagers from all around, could 
only see a column of smoke go up, vastly larger and 
higher and more injurious than those he had kindled on 
the same spot a few nights before. 

He rallied his spies around him; but, this time, they 
were at fault. A week passed and yet he could obtain no 
intelligence about the girl and her long-time companion. 

Fie taxed his brain to see if he had, during his attend- 
ance, inspired any terrors, but the cottager assured him 
that his kindness was ever memorable ; Kennedy had also 
assured her of that in the brief time before she disap- 
peared with her ward, never letting a clew drop to their 
whereabouts, although they were the best of friends and 
had come out of the Peak region together. 

Mortified, feeling that he was played against by a su- 


Wings Broader than Its Nest. 6 1 

perior hand, a great reflection on one who rated himself 
keener than lord chancellors and chief justices, the Flem- 
ing returned to town, leaving his agents to pursue what 
they pronounced a useless quest. 

“ I must enlist the king on my side,” said he, reasoning 
with great sense of the Tudor’s preponderance in all 
matters, high and low, petty and prodigious. “I warrant 
me that I and the king will overcome whatever forces 
are leagued to balk the fated beauty’s progress to her 
promised station.” 

Suddenly he clapped his hand to his brow. 

“Why not make her his queen?” muttered he. Then, 
looking around with much circumspection, he added, but 
without fluttering his lips, “I owe him that compensa- 
tion !” 


CHAPTER III. 


THERE IS NO PLACE SO CLOSE THAT DISCONTENT CANNOT 
LODGE AT EASE. 

At the end of the old wild deer park of South Dereham, 
is a nook which it would be hard for the uninformed to 
find on the longest day. 

The remains of a Saxon barrow, where the dead of a 
considerable battle were buried; another mound may be 
the vestiges of a Roman fort ; and the cottage is built for 
one story of the recently dislodged stones of a religious 
edifice. 

This cottage had been a gamekeeper’s, but the tenants 
had been hastily ejected that it might receive Catherine 
and her inseparable nurse. 

There were natural terraces, all planted with sweet 
flowers, but conspicuous was the rose, trained as stand- 
ard, a tall stem and a glorious bunch of fragrant and 
delighting bloom. 

A fountain issued from an old and maimed statue’s 
urn, and trickled over green sward like a carpet, letting 
waterfowl of foreign origin disport in the little pools. 

The cottage was finished over the stone with wood and 
plaster, giving a checkered effect, charming under its 
screen of ivy, and the whole embosomed in evergreen 
oaks. 

At the little door, which had an extension, almost a 


Discontent Cannot Lodge at Ease. 63 

room in itself, Dame Kennedy was sitting, wearing an 
immense pair of horn spectacles and trying to read the 
sixpenny book of the latest songs, bought of a peddler 
at the marketing place. 

Being one who made merry even when it went against 
the grain, for all her hard, set features, she could not 
show much jollity, but her tone, as she hummed, revealed 
that she was happier now than she had been for many 
a day before. 

‘‘To-night,” muttered she, ceasing her song-learning, 
“to-night the noble has said that he will carry out his 
vow to wed my dear young lady. I know this is true, 
for I have been up to the chapel, and I have with these 
eyes seen all the preparations for a wedding, less the 
crowded chancel and the choristers in sight, the parents to 
give away the bride, and the bridegroom’s friends to 
support him in his pledge. My darling, though it is un- 
der the mantelpiece, as they say, will still be this gentle- 
man’s wife. What matters that good reasons compel 
them to be united thus secretly? The State is a terrible 
tyrant when it is in the shape of Henry the burly and 
bluff ! I do not marvel that this noble, probably under 
his disfavor, weds and will not parade his wife, worthy of 
the court though she be, until the next monarch makes 
all England glad ! Wed ! Catherine will be nobly wed, 
and the saying will be made true ! I am content.” 

Forming a wreath of the roses, white and red, she re- 
sumed singing in her old voice, very gay now : 


64 Discontent Cannot Lodge at Ease. 

“The Laird of Turreffash would 
Do wrang to Sir John Dashwood, 

By lifting of his flocks ! 

Hame drove, an’ to his domage. 

No mutton for his homage, 

An’ lost ten o’ his jocks!” 

She went, still droning the refrain of her ballad, within 
the cottage. 

The interior was as great a surprise as had been that 
of the barge. The rustic furniture of the cottage had 
been removed and in its stead was that from the castle. 
Luckily, what was portable had been brought. So the 
rich fittings and luxurious seats and decorations made the 
place a boudoir meet for even the lovely Catherine. 

Like her maid, she wore an air of a pleasedness not 
seen in her former quarters. She was attired in fine 
stuffs, and her hair had been done up with her own hands 
after a block print of one of the foreign princesses, which 
the chapman had brought to the cottages. 

Dame Kennedy placed the roses in a basin, and pre- 
pared to form a string of them together with the wreath, 
to deck the midnight bride. 

“It will be to-night !” said she, as if doubting her great 
fortune. 

“He is a noble and will keep all his promises. I told 
you so from the outset !” 

“He was not sure, he said, last night !” 

“Not sure! A lover is never sure! His ‘mayhap’ 
means Til try/ and what is impossible to a lover? This 
is a lover who truly loves.” 

“You believe he is noble?” 


Discontent Cannot Lodge at Ease. 65 

“I am not inclined to be too inquisitive until all is 
secure — I mean until you are his wedded wife. But I use 
my eyes and listen, and this house and grounds are vast. 
The building covers three acres ! If the mansion of his 
friend, what must his rank be?” 

“Yes, and his presents !” 

She opened a drawer in a magnificent toilet table of 
Oriental cabinet-work, encrusted with what were gems 
in those days, and took out string after string of pearls, 
clusters of diamonds and bracelets of gold, the work- 
manship costly; there was enough to garnish the queen’s 
ladies at a state ball. 

Catherine handled them as if already accustomed to 
such trinkets. 

“Do you think that he loves me?” 

“Lady, if you go into a church and see the shrines and 
the presiding statue in each, how can you tell which rates 
the highest in the devotions of the worshipers?” 

“I should on the face of it say that the shrine where 
the most candles burn and the effigy is most profusely 
arrayed !” 

“By the gifts of your worshiper value his admira- 
tion.” 

“His admiration, yes — but his love!” 

“He is going to wed you — that fixes the seal on his 
love !” 

“Why does he keep secrets from me? How do I know 
what his rank is, if he has rank ! how his title when he is 
plain Ethelwolf to me! what his name when he presses 


66 Discontent Cannot Lodge at Ease. 

that he should be wedded under that bare Christian 
mark?” 

“Bah! after marriage he will be frank! Marry the 
man first, and he will be yours to the last — in the interval 
you will learn all that is good to know ! For years, my 
man was plain Nick to me. I little cared if he were a 
Roby or a Ducie, which they all were in my vale ! Give 
him all the love you have, all the little knowledge you 
have of your degree, and all the hopes of what you 
yearned to be ! Do not say to him, though he does so to 
you : ‘So few hours to you and so many to the unknown 
rival!’ ” 

“A rival ! I brook no rival !” 

“Pho! he is a statesman and must busy himself with 
the king’s business!” 

“Too young!” 

“A young head, but on old shoulders ! Brave, for he 
crosses the deer park without laying his hand on his 
sword — the bucks look at him, catch his eye, and let him 
wend his way ! Cool, for he says that, on the night when 
he saw you first, he dashed toward you through the worst 
high wind known for a lifetime on the Thames ! Lov- 
ing, for his eyes are full of you. When he has me by, 
he speaks of nothing but you — how you can be happy 
forevermore ! Oh, he loves you — or I never did ! I could 
die for him, because he is going to make a wife of you 
without asking more of your origin than I can allow my- 
self to give — perhaps, after marriage, he said, I may be 
more clear !” 

“But when I implored him to be frank, he said, ‘Not 


Discontent Cannot Lodge at Ease. 67 

now ! anon !’ I am sickened as one is with the rooks 
quarreling, with his ‘Anon!’ All I say to him falls and 
sinks in that fathomless pit of ‘Hereafter !’ ” 

“But you will be his lady-wife to-morrow ! There is 
no hereafter to wedded lovers — it is all one even mead, 
spangled with flowers !” 

“They have thorns !” 

“You will learn all that it is wise for you to know! 
His is not a close mouth !” 

“But it is. When I ask him if it is not another who 
detains him, making me wait so long for his visits, he 
smiles grimly and as if apprehensive — yes, there is some 
one who steals away my time ! whom he runs away from 
to give me a few moments !” 

“You are too grasping yourself. But never fear — 
after wedlock the other will lose her hold — I am not so 
sure it is not a him ! I hear, in the ballads, of friends 
who cling to their fellows like lover to his mate ! I can- 
not pronounce their names — they are very old — what time 
the fort out there was reared to beat off the savages who 
dressed, God save the mark ! in blue dye ! But they 
must be known to you who have read everything in print 
you could devour !” 

“Yes, there are noted pairs of friends in antiquity,” 
murmured Catherine, ready to be persuaded out of her 
jealousy. “But I should not permit Ethelwolf to go 
away from me to hunt with his Nisus.” She stamped 
her foot, clad in a velvet slipper embroidered with pearls. 
“At least this Nisus is free to rove in the woodland while 
I am as a captive of the heathen Turk again !” 


68 Discontent Cannot Lodge at Ease. 

“Wait — tomorrow it will be your Ethelwolf who will 
be your captive! You shall lead him in a silken thread, 
like the woman who has Hercules by the nose in the 
tapestry there!” 

After a pause, during which she had rapaciously chosen 
among the jewels as a queen for her coronation rather 
than a maid for her wedding, Catherine spoke. 

“Do you think that, after the nuptials, he will take me 
out of this lodging, which is not preferable to our old 
barge ?” 

“Certainly — no lover likes to hide his prize in a bushel. 
It were wise to do so, but who expects wisdom in a lover 
— in a newly-married man?” said the old woman, know- 
ingly. “He will take you to town, be shrew me else !” 

“To London ! Then I might with a light hand help 
you, and my tiring women, to adorn me as I have but 
half a heart to do now !” 

With Kennedy’s aid, no more experienced than herself 
to pin, clasp and spring, she proceeded to don the orna- 
ments which her veil was to cover without concealing. 

Soon they glittered on brow, neck, bosom and even 
around her wrists. 

“How dazzling! how splendrous you are! how happy 
you must be !” 

“Yes, dame, I am happy now on the eve — only — only 
it is a pity that there will be nobody there in the chapel 
to see me in this glory !” 

“Ah! she wishes to delight more than her husband! 
It is a bad sign !” muttered poor Kennedy. 

Catherine trod the room. The sunshine failing did not 


Discontent Cannot Lodge at Ease. 69 

content her. She made an imperious gesture and the old 
woman proceeded to obey her. She lighted a lamp and 
several candles. Her ward strutted up and down in the 
limited space, turning her head to see the gems glitter and 
the sheen of her silk dress with its semi-train. 

Suddenly her smile was dulled. 

“What a paltry marriage for a noble’s wife !” said she, 
“I ought to have pages to carry my train ! I ought to 
have the church — nay, a cathedral filled with spectators, 
and they noble, great, and proud ! The hall should glow 
with luster! so as to pale everything by my girdle of 
fire!” 

She went up to the mirror, not glass, but a sheet of 
silvery metal highly burnished. She admired herself with 
turns of the graceful neck, like a swan coquetting. 

“Let your gallant come now !” exclaimed Kennedy, en- 
thusiastically ; “this display is worthy of a queen, and you 
are worthy of this queenly display !” 


CHAPTER IV. 


WHERE EARL DEREHAM WAS EXPECTED ON HIS WEDDING 
MORN. 

The palace hall of reception at York-place, called 
Whitehall in time, was thronged with the officials bound 
to be in attendance when the monarch, like Henry, prided 
himself on the parade of state ceremonials. This throng 
was augmented by the privileged, who had heard that 
matters of unprecedented importance were to be enacted. 

Rumor had it that the king’s emissaries, he having 
maintained the staff of secret intelligences set up by 
Cardinal Wolsey, had never been more busy or widely 
disseminated. The absence, otherwise unaccountable, of 
the royal favorite, Earl Dereham, were laid to the emer- 
gencies of state, there being trouble from the north, 
backed by Scottish fomentation, as well as some ugly 
bruits brought on the winds over from the main. 

The officers attended not only in full attire but with 
the insignia of their posts. The lord great chancellor had 
his pages with the sword of state, and the knights of the 
orders of the Bath and Garter, and the foreigners entitled 
to wear the emblems of the noted alien recognizances, as 
the Fleece, The St. This or St. That, also were in their 
places, conversing decorously. 

Around the keeper of the seals flocked the grandees; 
such dukes as Norfolk, being the lieutenant-general of the 


Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 71 

kingdom, who inquired particularly as to the sovereign’s 
health. It was replied that the health was excellent if his 
majesty was not so harrassed by the cares of his country. 

But he had risen briskly, though betimes, for the sec- 
ond Tudor, finding it more onerous to sustain a dynasty 
than to found it, b*-gan to cultivate his bed of down. Not 
to lose time, he had called the chancellor into his “state 
bed,” that is his easy-chair by the alcove for rest. 

“There has been no change in the usual ceremony 
about the king’s rising?” asked Norfolk, who was punc- 
tilious. 

“None at all,” was the reply of the marshal of cere- 
mony. “It is precisely as established from man’s mind in 
our forefather’s time !” 

“Glad am I to hear that. I am not overfond of inno- 
vations, especially French ones, and yet I have feared, 
since the merry meeting of our king and France’s, that we 
should be outdone by outlandish caprices !” 

The chamberlain turned to instruct some new officers, 
and the duke brushed aside the tedium threatening him, 
as he was not to find many of his equals at hearing, to 
accost a prelate who entered under much obeisance. 

It was Thomas Cranmer, primate of all England, the 
English pope and his legatee in one. He had a troubled 
brow despite his self-government, for he must have had 
no good news from Rome, and instead of alluding to this 
subject, a home one for him, he listened greedily to some 
comments on the news, or rather the lack of news, out of 
the far north. 

“In truth, we are at loggerheads with the King of the 


72 Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 

Scots,” bluntly said Norfolk, drawing his conclusions 
from the chatter, “as inveterately as the Archangel 
Michael, there, with Prince Satan, on the arras.” 

There was something hurtling in the north wind. 
King Henry had returned from York in a fury. He had 
gone there mainly to meet King James, and the expecta- 
tion had been fanned for a week before it was blown out. 
There might be many and fine excuses for the slight, 
but inefficient; for the monarch, disappointed and in- 
sulted, had been attacked with something like gout flying 
to the head. 

“Provoking,” said the archbishop, like one who wished 
to neutralize one acid by another. “The tidings out of 
Italy are not kinder!” 

“You would not say that the king has been excom- 
municated again?” sneered Norfolk; “like the eels, he will 
get used to this kind of ecclesiastical flaying!” 

“This time, I think, it is the realm will be under the 
lash !” 

“Bah, it is a broad platter, our England, and we could 
roast a bull on it, like a carbonated steak !” 

“Ah, but the people will be pronounced unworthy of 
holy offices in their doings and goings !” 

“Will they get out the great galleys of Tuscany and 
tow our ancient isle over to the Bay of Naples to be dealt 
with, as a pig found cutting his throat in the spring over- 
flows ?” continued the old noble, bantering. 

“Your grace, were you not at the meeting yester- 
day ” 

“Of what? I had some friends to dine!” 


Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 73 

“No, the great meeting of stiff-necks, the nobles, the 
recalcitrant clergy, the — chafers at the yoke, as they 
say ” 

“When was this?” 

“Yesterday. I have the list of over twenty prelates and 
half that number of learned and religious doctors, who 
set down their adherence in formal writing ” 

“Writing! but, perhaps, that is the way to fight seals 
and bulls !” 

“It is the declaration that they and their followers 
finally reject the Roman domination!” 

“Ho, ho ! your shepherds are proof to the .correction of 
your crook, eh ! You must take them by the hindleg with 
the hook and throw them downstairs !” 

“They would drag me with them by the sheer weight ! 
I must approve of their rebellion, which is a purely moral 
one !” 

“The poor Pope left us nothing — what do these pure 
moralists leave him?” 

“A title — he is now, by their leave, Bishop of Rome !” 

“Rome is a world in itself, but not the world ! This is 
pruning the states of the Church ! Well, are we to flop 
about like a beheaded fowl, without our natural cap?” 

Cranmer smiled suavely. 

“No, since the same league of malcontents transfer 
their allegiance. They crave for a head, and beg the 
king to assume the leadership. The Defender of the 
Faith becomes its mender.” 

“Let it rest there !” 

“Ah, my lord, but it will not rest at that. There are 


74 Where Earl Dereham Was Expected, 

restless souls who will stir up that cistern of turbulence 
and turpidity, religious difficulties.” 

Norfolk shook his head. 

“When her sword is thrust in cold water, all cools 
down to the water. Little danger! The English people 
have passed through the waters and are on the other 
shore. This time, the English will fight the French with 
more vehemence than their brothers between Tweed and 
the ocean. The Jove on the Seven Hills may fling his 
bolts, but they will fall short, say, into the Channel. They 
will hiss and fume, but they will be quenched.” 

“Some of the sparks will scatter and light pyres 
here.” 

“Forefend it, God ! for all our sakes — man may light 
a fire, but whom it shall burn is beyond our ken !” 

Cranmer almost laughed at the word, but he remem- 
bered it later — when he burned at the stake. 

“We light no fire but for the Welsh to toast their 
cheese, Englishmen to warm their possets, and the Scotch 
to boil their stolen mutton over!” 

“It is because of this religious division that the Scotch 
will be able to enter the kingdom.” 

“Not far, not deep, my lord !” 

“You are a soldier and do not look beyond your out- 
posts !” 

“You are a gownsman and do not look outside of the 
convent walls! Now I conjecture that this Jamie o’ the 
North has had hold of the arm attached to that hand 
which signed the papal excommunication !” 

“It is a far cry from Arthur’s seat to the papal chair!” 


Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 75 

“The monasteries are echoing ears all the day. And 
the hand of King James’ rebuff is at the end of the pon- 
tiff’s arm! The holy father thus finds the mailed hand 
to grasp the sword of St. Peter. When James wedded 
with the Princess Mary of Guise, the papal blessing car- 
ried with it his bribe for him to make war on us.” 

While thus speaking the two had paced up and down, 
everybody making way for them. Thus they came over 
to the doorway of the royal apartments. Stopping at the 
sound of the king’s voice, they perceived it was warm 
with wrath, though the words were not intelligible 
through the panels and the hangings. 

Several pages at side entrances suddenly drew aside 
the hangings and hung them up on great iron hooks for 
the purpose. Out of this pranced a young man, lightly 
and extravagantly appareled in a style not seen elsewhere 
in the hall. He bowed the way in of a lady in court at- 
tire, for whom all suspended conversation and saluted 
lowly. 

It was the Princess Margaret, sister of the ruler. 

She 'wore rather a sad expression, and the resigned air 
of one compelled for state reasons to keep her feelings 
in control under the various scandalous acts of her 
brother. 

Her gallant was the newly-elected Duke of Sussex, 
coming to see the lady of the court as his first duty on his 
return out of France. Hastily saluting those gentlemen 
who bowed, he went on with the frivolous gossip with 
which he had been entertaining, or at least diverting, the 
seclate lady in her rooms. 


76 Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 

“Did I see there the Duchess of Etampes — that Diana 
whose like was not since the one who slid down the moon- 
beam balustrade like a tomboy to kiss the shepherd Endy- 
mion? Not to see her was to pass my time in an eclipse. 
Yes, of a verity I saw and admired that incomparable 
divinity ! One had need be a salamander to meet the 
scorching rays of her full eyes ! Often did I see her, but 
the first time, I remember me, that she wore a robe of a 
hue every like your grace’s, though more in cut than in 
hue, which was a favorite one of King Francis’.” 

Norfolk frowned and remarked to his gentleman in 
waiting : 

“Wrockwarden, is this one of England’s knights, so 
changed by a draft of French wine as . to chatter on the 
outbreak of war with our ancient foe, of bows of ribbon ?” 

“You have a sound memory, my lord!” replied the 
princess in the guarded tone which left a doubt whether 
she spoke jestingly or not, “and we will request your 
gracious brother to appoint you grand master of the 
Milanery !” 

There was a little titter, for the gibe was not ill, for a 
princess, at a time when princesses were both pert and 
literary, since the word “Milanery,” at first applied to 
steel work, notably armor, for which the Milan smiths 
were famed, was becoming altered to include the cutters 
and fashioners of dress for the less martial and for 
women. 

“The material of this self-same robe did come from 
over-the-sea. The mills of Lyons supplied it to the 
French king, who included a roll of it among other high- 


Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 77 

prized presents, in token of his eternal esteem of his 
brother sovereign.” 

The princess made a grand reverence to the Duke of 
Norfolk, and even a more dignified one to the archbishop. 
Sussex was not to be subdued; he advanced to salute 
them both, but quickly and even flippantly. Respect 
was diminishing in this generation. Henry had proven 
too effectually that bishops and dukes were things that 
might be stripped of their drapery and let into prison or 
upon the scaffold like ordinary nobles. 

“Alack !” interrupted the young peer. “Expect no 
more dresses or tokens of amity. The next thing will be 
gloves !” 

“Gloves, your grace ?” 

“Gloves, not for your hand ! gloves, plated with steel 
and shaped to hold lance and sword. The gantlet of 
war’s defiance !” 

“Norfolk turned swiftly upon him. 

“Tokens of defiance? Enmity, there, too?” 

“My grave lord, I am sorry to say that in bidding fare- 
well to the Princess of Guise and Montmorency, they 
more than hinted that the much-trumpeted Franco- 
Anglican alliance was not long to endure!” 

Courtiers flocked around this group, as close as re- 
spect for the princess and the primate would excuse. 

“Have you embroiled us with those grave lords, earl ?” 
the duke asked the other with much vivacity. 

“I? Not I! But the English in France have been 
doing all they could to enflame the genial, lightsome 
French with the old hate. There is still cherished against 


78 Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 

us a grudge for “the Battle of the Spurs,” and as long 
as King Henry maintains a stretch of French territory, 
as at Calais, so long will they wish it is but to have a 
foothold after landing to recover his army from the evil- 
of-the-sea before they have the tug for its possession re- 
newed.” 

“Oh! they seek that pitch still,” said the archbishop, 
soothingly ; “would that you had sounded the financier of 
the kingdom as to the amount they would pay for his re- 
demption.” 

“Sell for gold what our blood bought!” cried more 
than one voice. 

“Why not, when we need the money to fight,” said Sus- 
sex, with unexpected fire. 

“Ay,” said Norfolk, gravely, yet with some emotion. 
“War with Rome and her allied ; war with Scotland ; war 
with France! See you this, Sir Thomas? Even this 
mincing gallant longs to cover his silk with steel plate 
and exchange his gilded cane for a spear. You will see 
him on a warhorse sooner than the horse-litter which, 1 
hear, his companions would initiate here after a German 
model ! You followers of peace bring up our young on 
pap, but you forget the savor it gets from the iron pot ; 
and they cry for blood when they come of man’s age !” 

“My lord is right,” said Sussex, smiling; “we youth are 
like the fencing-master’s pupils, who, long kept back by 
the master’s superior prowess, finally learns all his tricks, 
and being taunted to thrust, by George! attack so sav- 
agely that they transfix him ! We have in sport so often 
fenced with Scot, Gaul and Spaniard that now that we 


Where Earl Dereham Was Expected 79 

mean to spar in earnest, there will be death carried on 
the point! As a man waylaid by desperadoes finds vic- 
tory in the confusion of all setting upon him in one rush, 
so that they postle, one the others, and all each one, so 
say I, ‘Have at us ! we shall cope with all of you at 
once !’ ” 

Norfolk was not at all ill pleased at this patriotic out- 
burst which the younger nobles would have violently ap- 
plauded but for etiquette. But he had conceived a dis- 
like for this man with his dainty gait and novel apparel, 
and he grumbled while secretly approving. 

“Young cousin,” said he, biting his gray mustache, “it 
is a pity that I should be forced to believe that our dread 
lord has too much work cut out and on hand which will 
stay him from taking up your well-digested and all-com- 
prising counsel, political views and precipitous projects !” 

“At least, my good lord, they are backed up by my own 
person ; it is not all the lords in council who, approving of 
war, buckle on their armor and swords for the battles they 
bring on us !” 

The younger man’s cheeks were burning, and his eyes 
blazed. He felt that he had gone beyond any rights in 
replying to the elder’s rebuke, and he knew clearly that 
the princess, brought up with rigid deference to the aged, 
would not commend his action. She had pretended not 
to hear the wrangle. 

The old peer looked out of the window and assumed 
a humorous expression. 

“I see nothing in the air to stay the lords of Guise and 


8o Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 

Montmorency, with their friends and kin, to boot, cross- 
ing the straits and of their own accord.” 

“To fight English gentlemen on their own soil !” said 
the youthful earl, nodding. 

“Well, they need but coast along to the border-line, 
wherein they can grind their famous blades on Scotch 
gritstone. I warrant that there are hot bloods at King 
James’ Court who would turn the whetting-wheel !” 

“Oh, in Scotland!” 

The courtiers brought their heads together and whis- 
pered. Certainly, there would be war with Scotland, and 
the French would be the allies there. 

“You need not send the course of the coasting to the 
French spitfires. They will betake themselves thither, 
particularly since the Guises and the Stuarts are bound 
by wedlock. As I do not doubt that your lordship will 
be numbered among the leaders of our forces, which I 
trust to conduct northerly, it will furnish a fine oppor- 
tunity for you to renew acquaintance with the foreign 
jacks ! Say, on Tweed bank — as firm fighting ground as 
the Seine !” 

“Things will turn out just as you surmise, my grave 
lord — if the king’s orders do not alter them. In my 
country there is a mossgrown saw, to wit : Tf a man sees 
two swordblades ashine in the sun, you need but look 
toward the duke to see that his scabbard is empty !’ ” 

The princess smiled at this and clapped her hand with 
one long glove, which she had drawn off, yet looked aside 
as if not pointedly indorsing the implied self-congratula- 
tion. 


Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 81 

“It is, in faith, an old, old saying,” interposed Cranmer, 
who seemed not averse to adding fuel to the flame, “but 
so old that it appeared fallen into disuse!” 

“It would have revived, my revered master,” said the 
youth, “if I had been home when that unhappy Queen 
Ann Bullen was tried.” 

There was a tremor running through the circles of lis- 
teners. On stepping off French ground the gallant had 
trodden upon that more volcanic. 

“And perchance it would have been better if I had been 
here, then, not for mine honor's sake — for that does not 
need fresh gilding — but for your highness' and your 
grace’s, and, eke, all those who let that stain of guileless 
blood befoul your mantles !” 

The judges of the short-lived queen shook at this un- 
precedented rebuke at the doors of the royal Bluebeard. 

“If I follow your lordship closely,” said Herbert of 
Pembroke, who had dissented against the judgment on 
the unfortunate consort, “you imply that you would, be- 
ing on the spot, have defended the lady ?” 

“Yes, and in two ways !” 

“One would have been enough to cost you your lib- 
erty,” said Somers, the jester, “and two — God wot! they 
would have imperiled your life !” 

“May one hear them?” asked one of those courtiers 
who sought to involve everybody but himself in the royal 
jealousy to “thin out the danglers.” 

“Why not?” continued the young peer, not requiring 
urging. “In the house of my peers, with my speech !” 


82 Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 

“But if the king hushed your speech, as mine!” sug- 
gested some dependent of the Bullens. 

“Then, in the field of honor, with my sword!” 

In the silence, vibrating in all breasts, the princess alone 
took it upon her to speak. 

“My lord, my lord, you forget,” said she, with quaver- 
ing accents, for she felt for the loose-tongued but valor- 
ous knight, “you are upbraiding your sovereign — and be- 
fore his sister!” 

“Cry you pardon, lady !” said Sussex, not a whit 
abashed. “But I noticed your highness was so detached 
from worldly matters that I could not imagine the sound 
of my voice, and no more the purport of my speech, 
should tingle in your ear.” 

This was barbing the arrow. There was a rumor that, 
feeling a passion impossible to realize, the lady looked 
toward the convent for repose, and this blame became 
personal. 

But she was quite capable of fighting her own battles. 
She looked all around to signify with the glance that she 
begged for no champion. She used a plain, leisurely 
modulated voice which carried conviction. 

“Sussex,” said she, “since Heaven has given my 
brother the blessing of a son and heir to the glorious 
throne of our sires, and I laid aside all expectation of 
being successor to the crown, there went with my dues all 
desire to be consulted in matters of peace, war and poli- 
tics. Believe, then, that had this been otherwise, I should 
have listened with the proper interest to the warlike de- 
bate between you and the gentlemen.” 


Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 8} 

In this reproaching him in her apology, she returned 
the question upon the general ground and thrust the 
Bullen interlude out of the scene. 

“Alack, lady !” returned the irrepressible hornet, who 
seemed bent on venting on her the spite of some censure 
previous to this time; “if the words I uttered had come 
from another mouth, which I need not fit the name 


She started and lifted her large fan before her twitch- 
ing features. 

“Your highness would at present be a rebel !” 

Few fully understood this quip. What the irritating 
young noble was aiming at none could guess — for the 
princess was amiable and had no foes. 

It would appear that Sussex had left the court, not to 
see her, since he might love her without hope, but that on 
his return he had discovered that he had a rival with 
stronger support. 

“A rebel?” 

“A rebel, for I really believe your highness would 
have gone on learning warfare and politics under able 
tuition, as if her nephew, our dear Prince Edward, did 
not exist!” 

Again no one checked this remarkable attack. 

“My Lord of Sussex,” said she, “I know not if King 
Francis’ sister permits his peers to pass such remarks in 
her presence, but I do know right well that if they are 
repeated in the hearing of our King Henry’s sister, she 
will be obliged to appeal to the King of England!” 

The silence had become burdensome ; token of a gath- 


84 Where Earl Dereham Was Expected. 

ering storm. Somers, the fool, had retired into a recess. 
Sussex received signals from his friends, though his arro- 
gance and foppishness had lessened their number; carp- 
ing at a princess for jilting him was one thing, but it was 
worse to hint at the more successful wooer. Who was 
this ? a hundred eyes questioned ; but as there was no an- 
swer, it seemed providential that the ushers at the door 
and all along the passage to the hall, should repeat in 
their clear voices : 

“Room ! room ! way for his grace, the Earl of Dere- 
ham !” 


CHAPTER V. 


SHOWING IN WHAT ARRAY THE SCOTS CAME TO AD- 
DRESS THE KING OF ENGLAND. 

Ethelwolf, Earl of Dereham, entered with a train like a 
royal prince. But though his suite were clad in glittering 
and highly colored costumes, it was their chief who was 
merely foiled by their attire. 

Overnight, we know, he was to marry the lone captive 
of the stranded barge — consequently he was in his wed- 
ding suit. 

As the military officials of the household — officers of 
the sword — still wore armor as proof of their posts, this 
daintiness was conspicuous. Save young lords who had 
traveled — like Sussex — the tone was sober, though the 
material was rich. This beginning to dispense even with 
body armor had led to Dereham replying that he cast off 
his iron to fight the more freely — not to flee. 

In the hall he had handed to a page his cap, adorned 
with long plumes of rare birds, and his cloak, laced with 
rows of gilt tinsel, and buttoned with chiseled gold knobs 
and the claps jeweled. 

So his fair head stood out over a sea of billowy lace, 
fine as the Princess Margaret was wearing, and as pro- 
fuse. His doublet sat close and showed a peerless figure, 
enhanced and made pliable by no stint of manly exercises. 
His nervous limbs were shaped out in roseate hose of 


86 


The Scots Address the King. 


wool, almost resembling silk ; and his shoes were loaded, 
as the fashion was, since the king’s feet were clumsy, 
with the Tudor rose, enormous, and set with a costly ruby 
‘in the midst. On his left breast, screwed with a pin 
tipped with a crystal, bloomed a large fresh rose. 

It was Catherine’s decoration. 

Everybody scanned this joyous figure with different 
emotions. 

One studies the king’s favorite to pry out the secret of 
his fascination. 

Some said that Fleming, whose pupil Ethelwolf was 
known to be, had the monarch set toward him by spells 
and potions. Others resented that Henry should hang 
round this young noble’s neck — like a necklace — and 
hoped it would be the fatal halter some early day. 

Margaret gave him one quick glance and dared no 
more, lest she betrayed what was not a close secret now. 

It was acknowledged that, if the policy of seeking a 
husband for a princess of the English house royal, for 
fear of exciting home feuds, was to be broken, she might 
not be blamed for a derogatory mate if she wedded with 
Dereham. 

The flower on his breast might signify that he wore her 
color and her brand, since it might pass for the Tudor 
rose, and she colored a little and plied her fan. 

Dereham was greeted by a hundred who could get near 
him. 

This lateness of his to pay his morning duty to the 
king argued that he had no fear of his favor faltering. 


The Scots Address the King. 87 

On all sides, though, were heard regrets that he was 
belated. 

‘ Nay, nay,” said Sussex, with his pushing forward, 
this time goaded by seeing a rival to his flame. “You are 
most timely, lord of all hearts !” 

The young nobles faced, and many thought that seldom 
had they seen a comelier pair or one more worthy of their 
high strains. 

“Timely!” 

All listened, for it looked as if the returner from the 
foreign strand would have a quarrel on his hands before 
nightfall. 

“Yes, to plead a cause in my favor, nearly lost at her 
highness’ special court ” 

Ethelwolf did not seem to like this being kept beside 
the princess, from whom he was turning after a cere- 
monial salutation. 

“My lord, you meet me most untimely, for I hurried to 
crave pardon for my lateness. I may, however, arrive 
too late to properly present my greeting to her highness, 
but I am far too late, with other affairs in abeyance, to 
place my services at your grace’s command — whom I am 
glad to see home again to take a place in the council !” 

“And the field !” added the peer, quickly. 

“Sometimes,” said Margaret, with a little bitterness, “it 
is easier to forgive the absent than the present. For 
absence only entails one reproach — that of forgetful- 
ness !” 

She could not keep some pain and vexation out of her 
speech. 


88 


The Scots Address the King. 


Dereham was young for hi c place, but he had learned 
the art to deceive that one may delight. 

“You know how unjust that would be to befall me, 
lady,” said he, with smooth tongue, under his smooth 
face. “No, I was at the palace at a good hour, but I was 
detained there by a tremendous concourse, and the bar- 
riers put up to restrain the London mob flocking to glower 
at the Scottish envoys and their guards, all reeking of 
the heather and the ice-brook! The people cheer them 
as they would any wild beast !” he concluded, with droll- 
ery. 

“What, have we the kerns here?” cried the Duke of 
Norfolk, quickly, going to the window and drawing the 
curtain aside to peer upon the north road. 

“They are asking for admission in their own way.” 

Indeed, all conversation was suspended because of a 
hideous and stupendous clamor. There was laughter, 
cheers, and wild shouting. Norfolk and others at the 
windows saw odd pennons wave, and long poles topped 
with uncouth axes brandished, while caps plumed with 
wild birds’ feathers were put on the points of heavy blades. 
Then was heard the English turning-out signal for the 
guards — drum and fife. Suddenly blared a strange and 
poignant, deafening and yet harrying sound, more noise 
than music. 

The courtiers blanched and trembled. 

“Barbaric !” said young Sussex, “it is the war horns of 
the Scythians spoken of, saith my tutor, by Thucydides !” 

Norfolk turned round in the embrasure, and, holding 


The Scots Address the King. 89 

up his hand for a hearing, and taking advantage of a lull, 
explained with a solemn face : 

“It is the slogan — the war song of the border clans — 
that is the McClennan’s pibroch !” 

Sussex turned to Margaret. 

“The compliment your highness made me whilom 
should be rehearsed to our high constable, for he has a 
better memory, I do not doubt, than poor me !” 

“Memory?” returned Norfolk, coming into the hall as 
if to break away from the savage melody. “Young 
knight, believe an old warsman. When you shall have 
heard only once that eerie battle call on the clashing field, 
and that devils’ bagpipe skirl over the dying, you will for- 
ever mind it, and its echo will go down in your halls 
from father to son and from mother to daughter. And 
more than once you will rise up of a sudden in the dead of 
the night, driven by it out of your dreams !” 

A shudder ran through the audience, for it was not a 
slight thing that would make the fire-tempered marshal 
of England blanch and wince. Margaret beckoned openly 
to Dereham to come near her, as if she wished a shield 
against the impression pervading her, and making her 
heart chill after throbbing too impetuously. 

He was holding out his arm to her with courtesy, but 
assuredly no other feeling, though Sussex chose to see in 
it a deeper meaning, when of a sudden the door near them 
flew open before a vigorous thrust. The two folds un- 
folding showed on the sill the figure of King Henry. 

It was not given to many men to witness that bulk of 
man and monarchy in a passion. His broad face was red 


90 


The Scots Address the King. 

to the ears; his eyes were beginning to seem inset in de- 
pressions of fat, but they were distended and emitted 
sparks of light ; his vast frame, wide of shoulder and hip, 
and set on great limbs and substantial feet, quaked with 
indignation. 

In a lusty voice, compatible with his formidable aspect, 
he thundered, like an aroused lion silencing all the deni- 
zens of the forest : 

“Now, by my holy dame! do you hear that? as I did, 
gentlemen? or is it a daydream after too heavy a gorged 
banquet! Can it be — no, it cannot be that the pipes of 
Scotland squeak in our palace courtyard !” 

The courtiers shrank, as if each were to blame. With 
his impetuosity and lack of reverence, Sussex again fore- 
stalled others. 

“A fig, to choke the mouthpiece !” cried he. “Sire, full 
oft have they heard the English bugle-horn in Stirling 
Castle-yard !” 

Henry looked at him, recognizing, but not calm enough 
to grin his approval. Presently he wiped his forehead 
with a kerchief, which he flung to a page. 

“You are right, boy!” said he, nodding genially to the 
pert speaker. “It seems time you all rallied around our 
standard-guard.” He listened. There was silence with- 
out. “But our horns,” he went on in a lowered tone, 
“did not spout such fiendish wailings — enow to startle 
the cold dead from their graves !” 

The whole palace had been turned out by the unusual 
piping. Several old servants and ladies burst in at side 
doors. Out of an unsuspected secret panel appeared the 


9i 


The Scots Address the King. 

white head and sturdy old form of the companion of 
Dereham on the mystic night, and who had been brought 
to the healing of Catherine. 

Henry the king looked at him with amusement and 
sympathy. 

The necromancer held in one hand a phial, in the mouth 
of which was stuck a glass filter with a bulb. In the 
other was a leaf of parchment of which he was following 
the prescript when drawn out of his study. 

“Ha, look at our old seeker of truth ! Cheer, Fleming ! 
he comes hasting from his laboratory, bedewed as by the 
hot waters of Bath, believing no longer in his devil hav- 
ing power to shield him — thinking the shrilling was from 
the last trump !” 

Perceiving that his fright had driven him into view of 
the Court, Fleming cowered back to the tapestry. 

“Begone into your den, master !” continued the king. 
“It is nothing! Compos sni!” said he, laughing as he 
aired his Latin. “Be master of yourself ! that is just the 
Scotch idea of a welcoming chant ! the yelp of the High- 
land sheep-cur trying to emulate the roar of the lion of 
England !” 

Fleming made a short and hurried bow, with his eyes 
blinking, and disappeared by the hidden outlet, where the 
panel slid behind him as if pulled by invisible spirits. 

The king turned to Norfolk, who stood at attention 
as though awaiting orders. 

“Constable, go superintend the letting in of those bor- 
der cattle drovers, and on the way, ask our trumpeters if 


92 


The Scots Address the King. 


they have forgotten the blast they blew in the great, last 
charge of Flodden-field !” 

He showed his teeth, strong, short and ground with 
voracious eating as he uttered the final words. 

Henry proceeded with a measured step to the chair at 
the throne site. He saluted his sister with much grace, 
that chivalric deference and recognition of women which 
gave him much advance in winning their kindness. He 
bowed to the whole assemblage, and to those he passed 
closely, he said in a low voice, full of ominous merriment : 

“ ’Tis the watch horn, which denotes that it is our 
neighbor’s palace, not ours, that is food for the burning.'"’ 

Two or three courtiers slipped out and climbed by con- 
nivance of the servants to the roof of the east turret. 
There, presently, several of the carrier pigeons, to keep 
which has always been the cockney weakness, hastily 
were thrust out of their coops. They each bore mes- 
sages rolled up in a quill and firmly attached. The tenor 
of all was similar : 

“War with Scotland! Rely on this !” 

. The pigeon, it appears, was the flying newsman of that 
reign. 

Henry scrutinized the gathering. All faces, recover- 
ing from the gruesome surprise of the bagpipes, were 
ruffled, but soon came the composure of men eager for 
action under the monarch’s direction. All remembered 
that he was the general who had beaten the French at 
Guinegate. 

He beckoned to Dereham, while fifty others were wait- 
ing to be called beside him. 


93 


The Scots Address the King. 

“Wolf,” said he, tenderly, for he loved this young 
man, “do not hang back from drawing nigh, for this 
ground is still certain — the throne is not to be shaken by 
the blast of a pipe in a sack ! I stood against the Bretons 
called to advance by their bagpipes ! These other sec- 
tions cannot prevail against a fort upheld on one side by 
nobility as fervent, stout and dreading naught, as 


He left one hand on his favorite’s shoulder, and taking 
the archbishop’s hand, said with ripe art : 

“And secured by Mother Church !” 

He seemed engrossed in this appeal to peers and 
bishops — but he saw every movement in the throng. He 
saw, therefore, as if she was averse even to her brother 
depriving her of Dereham’s company, that the princess 
was withdrawing. 

“Where are you going, Madge?” said he, cordially. 

“Sire, I came to wish you good-day, and not to receive 
these Norsemen! If this be their music, God save me 
from their voices ! I hope that you will take it that my 
place is not at a council of war !” 

He stopped her retreat with a gesture. 

“Your birth should set you more oft at the council- 
board than on the ballroom floor !” said he, curtly, but still 
with the affection in which he held her. “You are for- 
getful that, in England, land of chivalry and gallantry, 
without hyprocrisy, women may rule, and that if evil 
should accrue to Prince Edward ” 

“Which Heaven forfend !” interrupted Cranmer, always 
seizing an opening to ingratiate himself. 


94 


The Scots Address the King. 

“Ay, God preserve us all from disaster of any kind !” 
said she, forcibly. 

She had never coveted cares of state. Repeating her 
courtesy, accepting the silence as approval of her Tudor- 
esque stubbornness, she continued her departure, escorted 
by Sussex, who profited by Dereham being beside the 
king; but the young noble returned from her suite doors. 

“Where is Will?” asked the king, looking around. 
“Where is my Momus, Will?” 

“Your merryman,” replied Dereham, quietly, “lost his 
appetite for the morning cake on hearing that rude break- 
fast horn !” 

With the princess, all the ladies had gone out. The 
men drew themselves up erect, and even the pages as- 
sumed martial airs, or, at all events, saucy ones, their 
hands on the waist or resting on their jeweled daggers 
in the glittering sheaths; their caps set jauntily on their 
curls or long locks. 

The guards held their partisans as if they were oak and 
iron, like them; the other soldiers resembled high-reliefs 
jutting forth from the walls. The nobles clustered 
around the throne where Dereham by his youth con- 
trasted with the veterans of the French and English 
strife, and also of repelling raids of the Scotch. 

Presently, when the tension of waiting was hard- 
drawn, was heard the tolerably regular march of men 
weighty by their weapons and armor, wearing buskins 
of goat rawhide, and slightly stumbling on unknown 
marble and polished oaken floors. This march was up 


The Scots Address the King. 95 

the grand staircase, and between lines of soldiers and 
palace servants. 

The bagpipes and the hoarse chorus had not been heard 
after the shrill and clear blasts of the clarion at the gate- 
way. But the tramp was as impressive as all that in- 
harmonious, strident clangor. 

The monarch stood out a little on the platform, from 
his chair, the same which was re-seated with the stone 
of Scone, formerly belonging to the kings of Scotland 
and attached by ancient rites to their coronation forms. 
At the back of this chair, encircled in the blue ribbon, were 
the armorial bearings of England — the lions with the 
French lily-flowers. 

The king-at-arms, as the lord chamberlain challenged 
the newcomers at the main doorway, signaled to his 
own heralds to blow a welcoming blast, on silver trum- 
pets. 

The Scottish delegation comprised famed nobles and 
warriors, but with appreciation of his renown among the 
English, the chief was Sir John Thirlstane, lord lieuten- 
ant of the marches, a grizzled veteran, sheathed in com- 
plete steel. Only, instead of the breastplate for a 
mounted man, he wore a surcoat of fine steel chain over 
his midst, girdled by the belt of the Knights of St. An- 
drews, the cross in beaten silver spotting the blue steel 
at regular spaces. He had a heavy sword at his side, 
with a massive gold hilt ; and he carried a steel rod, almost 
like a walking-stave, except that its peak was furnished 
with a small ax and a hook. This instrument, used to 
enable a member of a storming party to climb up a wall, 


9 6 The Scots Address the King. 

signified that the war which he was prepared to announce 
would be to the heart of the city, after having been 
merciless on the country. 

His helmet, too, unsuiting the plate armor, had no visor, 
but exposed his stern visage, with a nose scarred and a 
short beard and mustache, cropped so as not to be chafed 
by the neckpiece of chain-mail closely enwrapping his 
nape and throat. 

He bore this load of iron as if it were the fine silk of 
Dereham’s gay bridal suit. 

Sir John, ‘'the Harrier of the Border,” was half a head 
taller than his surrounders, though they were men of 
brawn and substance. Used to deer hunting and follow- 
ing the eagle to its crags, they were spare in flesh. Their 
dress was quaint and barbaric. Some had bare legs and 
arms of savages; these wore boiled leather caps, plated 
rudely with brass and copper, riveted on ; others had wool 
caps and bonnets, the ancient buckles and clasps of 
bronze, perhaps coeval with the Danish invasions, holding 
plumes cut of rare and high-flying birds. They were of 
both the black and the red northern races, some having 
flowing hair and beards so long that they were braided 
and tied up like horses’ manes. Their equipment was 
non-uniform and every head had its distinction thus ; 
helms and casques — some taken in battle in the lowlands, 
no doubt ; the Templars’ flat iron pots, the crested and the 
pointed, the rounded and the spiked. Some of their re- 
tainers carried spears adorned with horn, jaw, and beak 
of indescribable animals, like the North American In- 
dians’ totem. 


97 


The Scots Address the King. 

Standing before the gilded and highly-tinted tapestry, 
with gaudy courtiers flanking them, they displayed not 
the slightest curiosity, being controlled by unweakening 
wills. 

“Vandals and Goths!” muttered the lord chamberlain, 
as, his duty performed, he fell back, with the king-at- 
arms. 

“Yes, but, luckily, we have a dictator who will save 
Rome !” said Norroy. 

“And extend her borders !” added Dereham, who over- 
heard. 

So did the king, for he darted a rapid look of thanks 
toward his flatterer. 

Sir John Thirlstane, envoy of King James of Scotland, 
was allowed to approach his dread majesty of England. 

Henry looked full at the representative after a linger- 
ing glance at the only object common to his supporters — 
the famous claymore. This national weapon was a 
double-edged sword-blade of some forty odd inches long 
by two wide, densely hammered forging, and weighing 
six or seven pounds. The handle was long, to permit 
the use of two hands for a finishing stroke. 

Thrilstane’s page bore his siege-shield, a mantelet with 
a sea-bird “displayed,” supposed never to rest, but remain 
on the wing, with the motto, “Ready and steady !” 

“We greet you, Sir John ! we acknowledge you worthy 
to-day of your olden and never-belied device!” 

The Scot, for he was by name and lineage truly Scotch, 
bowed. 

“I am proud,” returned he, his voice martially in uni- 


98 The Scots Address the King. 

son with the clank and jingle of his mail, having a me- 
tallic ring, too — “I am proud to bear it when, as now, 
my prince’s and my native land’s honor are at stake, and 
my ambition is to act up to it.” 

“We know you, loyal and intrepid servitor, and the 
selection of the messenger is as agreeable as, we trust, the 
nature of the message. Who is to doubt that my nephew 
is to fulfill the claims imposed on him? and it is to give 
the greatest publicity to his submission that — in lieu of 
meeting his liege at York, where I waited a whole week 
for him” — went on the king with emphasis, while he could 
not prevent a frown — “to debate in a close room, the 
political and religious conditions of our two realms, he 
sends an ambassador who deserves this very public hear- 
ing ” 

“Sire, my king’s instructions are plain and precise,” 
said the envoy, bluntly. 

Some took this to be ambiguous; the Scots formed a 
kind of iron wedge, with their head at the point threat- 
ening the king. 

“So fare ye all the better!” responded the Tudor, with 
that heartiness innate, but which he often forced to mask 
real astuteness. “Does James finally consent to adopt 
the Reformed Creed, destroy the monkeries in his con- 
fines, and recognize Messire Pope as just the Bishop of 
Rome?” 

At each of these extreme points the hearers had started 
and their armor shivered loudly like dry leaves in a gust. 
The impassible faces did not change, but, internally, be 
sure, there was spite. 


99 


The Scots Address the King. 

“Sire, the Scotland my master rules is unaltered in 
heart and spirit, since first she eschewed stones and 
blocks ! For both, St. Peter’s successor is Christ’s vicar, 
and people and monarch cling firm unto the end. It’s 
their fathers’ faith, and they hold it as their own fame.” 

“It is good !” said Henry. “This first reply to my first 
question could be foreseen in King James’ alliance with 
the family of the sanguinary butcher-duke of Guise! In- 
stead of Hymen’s torch, the wedding took place by the 
glare of St. Bartlemy’s Eve ! Later we shall decide how 
much of a warming to the argument this flame gives 
toward the passions of war!” 

A grim smile of intense pleasure pervaded the Scot- 
tish phalanx ; those who had feared that the embassy was 
to defer an appeal to arms, took courage; this king met 
taunts halfway. 

“We hope,” said Sir John, affecting to be judicious, 
“your grace will keep the balance between peace and war 
with a hand as nice and as powerful, and that neither the 
bigot’s breath nor the counsel of biased persons will make 
the scales waver.” 

“The resolution I am coming to depends less on your 
response, already cut and dried, methinks, than on the 
next one, Sir John !” 

The Scots listened heedfully. Already, though the vis- 
itors had seen a great deal of England and a peep at Lon- 
don in this journey, they could not estimate the powers of 
the foe they were again to engage; but this hall full of 
warriors noted in their chronicles, the array of the House- 
hold Guards, chosen for their build and stature, all im- 
L.ofC. 


100 


The Scots Address the King. 

pressed them. The vastness of the gathering of citizens 
swarming about Charing Cross, had made them hope not 
at all — in case of one of these violent popular outbursts, 
when the rights of ambassadors went as chaff, they 
would, spite of their valor and indomitable prowess, be 
trampled to pulp. They felt cabined in a hall, however 
roomy, these sons of the moors and mountains. 

“Hearken ye, one and all,” proceeded Henry, with his 
sonorous voice, “in a word, does the Fifth James of Scot- 
land concede to make homage to me of the crown of 
Scotland, as has been done by his fathers unto mine, 
from the year nine hundred?” 

Sir John’s nostrils fluttered; he heaved a breath in re- 
lief. The verbal fencing was over — the bout was begun. 

In those days warriors read little, but the clerks poured 
into their ears certain facts as their minstrels poured the 
songs of their ancestral triumphs. Thirlstane knew to 
a letter the story of his country’s struggles against Eng- 
land ; how the First Edward had conquered it, and how 
the royal vassage had been tendered under the Conqueror 
and his son the red king. Edgar had bowed to Henry 
the First, David to the Empress Matilda, David’s son to 
Stephen, and so on to Henry, Richard and John. 

Over their heads waved and dustily rotted the banners 
taken in the northern wars, illustrating the futile re- 
sistance to servitude. 

The break in the usage was during civil wars, when 
England’s rulers had their hands full of rebel weapons, 
aimed at their hearts. But as the jurists said, “Forbear- 
ance is no acquittance!” and Henry had the custom on 


IOI 


The Scots Address the King. 

his side. Having let the remembrances percolate in his 
audience’s bosoms, the sovereign took up his argument 
as if he had been speaking what they recalled. 

“Now I, Sir John, as you know, being the minister of 
celestial vengeance, drowning out our rebels in their own 
blood ; smothering heretics in the flames of their own per- 
nicious books, and sweeping the remnants of hostility 
into a heap on the won field, to molder into dust, I have 
but to stretch out my hand, unfatigued by this chastise- 
ment, to beckon the Scots to renew their allegiance to 
their own nobility, that nobility to their immediate king, 
and that king to his king — he of England ” 

He paused as if to invite a protest, but none were 
heard to breathe. 

“As that king renders obeisance to the King of Kings !” 

There was varied emotion, for eloquent divines there 
acknowledged that this rough and overbearing speaker 
had real nerve when the theme struck home to him. 

All looked at the envoy, though expecting no reply but 
a weak one — certainly, a useless one. 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE CHIEF TROPHY OF ENGLAND'S MIGHT. 

Thirlstane’s voice was noticeably tremulous at the first. 
He saw that he was withstanding a foregone conclusion. 

“Pray, sire, overlook my being compelled to make a 
contrary reply to your grace than that apparently ex- 
pected. But the homage of the ancient kings of the 
Scots was never rendered to your grace’s foregoers but 
in respect to their lands possessed in England. In the 
same way as the English kings rendered homage to those 
in France for the duchies of Guienne and Normandy. 
Your grace knoweth, one sees, our mutual story too well 
to confuse the homage of Huntingdonshire with that of 
the realm; and the private homage of the kings of North- 
umberland with that of the kings of Scotland. Nothing 
can be argued from what passed under Baliol’s rule, since 
our nobles ever protested against his doings. Truly, 
John Baliol did render homage to Edward the First, in ac- 
knowledgment of his help in placing him on the throne, 
but thereby he lost the esteem of his brother nobles and 
his people’s love, and my King James is too highly valued 
by the ones and too dearly loved by the others to ever 
risk such a woe.” 

Henry looked on him and his approving comrades with 
placid face, as the bull counts the dogs about to be slipped 
at him, choosing the most formidable to horn first in the 
fray. 


Chief Trophy of England’s Might. 103 

“I conclude,’’ said he, “that my nephew refuses to own 
that I am his lord paramount !” 

All hung upon the Scot’s lip, so to say. He was aware 
of his position, for solemnly he replied : 

“King James refuses homage.” 

“Having well weighed beforehand the outcome of that 
refusal ?” said Henry, quickly, while all were heaving a 
breath of relief. 

“He will bear the outcome! He cannot revoke what 
he spoke ! Scottish kings wore swords before they 
sported crowns !” 

As if it were a signal, all his friends clapped their 
hands to their sword hilts. The sound was the more ter- 
rible as it was unique; none but ambassadors are priv- 
ileged to carry arms, and to smite them was an insult. 
But King Henry loftily waved his hand for none to re- 
sent his quarrels. 

More majestic than elegant, portentous in his velvets 
and silk than the Scots in their warlike attire, he filled the 
dais as if he were a hundred men in one. 

“This is well, Sir John,” said he, almost exultantly, 
“well ! For we were waxing weary of these tributes 
sworn to on holy sites and over-sacred emblems ! — sworn 
to, but to be evaded! Hear ye this! A while ago, I 
might have contented myself with what I asked. Now, 
by the lance of St. George! the armor being donned, all 
is changed. The. great Creator’s hand has set our two 
nations afar from the rest of the world, face to face, on 
one piece of land, but unequally divided by the narrow 


io4 Chief Trophy of England’s Might. 

waterway of the Tweed. Enough to part two provinces, 
but not two kingdoms ! 

“Hence, for a thousand years, the best and purest 
blood of two races has never ceased to dye one bank or 
the other. For that time not a torch has flared up in 
Scotland, but England’s powerful breath has fanned it 
into a flame scorching many a town. The hate between 
these twain has been leagued by the mother in her milk 
to her daughter, and with the sire’s sword it has been 
handed down to his son. Well, Sir John, this hatred 
would last us from generation to generation to the last 
day when sun shall set to rise no more, if I, Henry of 
England, had not bethought me to have done with it 
within my reign!” 

There was sigh of alleviation as from bystanders who 
saw Alexander, after vainly tugging at the Gordian knot, 
sever the strands and the riddle by cutting through with 
his glaive. 

“Homage is not enough for Henry — he exacts a con- 
quest.” 

In the high cheek bones of the Scots one could see the 
anger glow as if touched with a red-hot brand. But 
they were well disciplined, and fixed their eyes on their 
chief, whom they had sworn to follow to the death if they 
evinced their feelings in London center, or to temporary 
acquiescence, if they expected to escape to their lines 
again. 

There was a clank of metal, though, as they involun- 
tarily moved with their muscles extending under their 
warlike raiment. 


Chief Trophy of England’s Might. 105 

“However large an island i c , it is ever too small for 
two kings ! From this day out, there will be no longer 
a king of England and a king of Scotland ! There will 
be the king over England and Scotland ! That is all ! 
Primo mihi! said the lion — T am but one!’ Let the God 
of battles decide the name — Henry or James !” 

All this was kinglike. Sir John could only reply: 

“Sire, there is but one God — the God of battle is also 
that of justice !” 

Henry waved his hand — a gesture not everybody un- 
derstood, but two ushers suddenly swept away the drapery 
enveloping one of the series of panoplies standing on oak 
pedestals along the hall, opposite the windows. They 
were historic suits of armor, from William the Conqueror 
to the vanquisher of Richard the Third. But the one 
draped and now unveiled stood apart from the regular 
line, for some occult reason only now made known. 
Dereham, with a prodigious effort of strength, absurd 
in one clad in silk and cloth of gold, applied his shoulder 
to the heavy stand and shoved the whole forward into 
plain view of the Scots. The push made the panoply 
vibrate and emit a hollow resonance. 

The steel was magnificent, though allowed to become 
coated with verd antique and dust, like one of the hal- 
lowed effigies in an abbey. A whisper ran around the 
whole assembly, but seemed to linger lovingly among 
the strangers. With a beautiful movement, in unanimity, 
headgear was touched as if to be cast off, and many a 
pair of hands were clasped in prayer. 

“King James! Jamie o’ Flodden!” 


was the murmur. 


106 Chief Trophy of England’s Might. 

This was, indeed, the celebrated suit of fluted and per- 
fected armor, made by the finest smiths of Milan, casing 
the royal weaver from head to foot; beauty was com- 
bined with safety. The absence of cumbrousness made 
the whole seem small, but it would have gone over the 
most gigantic yeoman present. The helmet was of a 
graceful and natural form, as if molded to the human 
head. It was in a suit of Milanery that two forces of 
chevaliers fought from morn to night without any one 
being killed or even wounded ! 

The gilding had turned green in traces, the shoulder- 
guards were hacked, the plumes were shorn off ; the eye- 
holes in the visor, shut, had no gleam of light. But the 
impression of a hero having animated that shell was deep. 
In that, King James the Fourth had been stricken down 
dead on Flodden-field. Those streaks of rust on the 
greaves may have been caused by the blood of his son or 
the nobles felled around him. In the knot of lookers-on 
were descendants of the twelve counts, and seventeen 
barons, who had laid their bones as a rampart around 
the Lion of Scotland. On the burnished breast, where a 
crown was inlaid in gold, a reft was plain — through that 
an English lance-head had bored its way to the indom- 
itable heart. 

At identifying, so to say, this most glorious of Eng- 
land’s trophies, Sir John felt a red mist over his strained 
eyes. He shuddered with rage succeeding his sorrow. 
Beside him, strong men stifled their sobs. At a word of 
his indignation a score of swords and spears would have 
again been immersed in English blood; but he and his 


Chief Trophy of England's Might. 107 

adherents would never have reached the courtyard by 
the doorway — they would have been hurled out of the 
casement, piecemeal, from the edge of ax and point of 
halberds, 

“Prudent as a Scot !” — “Brave as a Scot !” two contra- 
dictions, but they were sentiments lying side by side in 
these visitors. 

Henry seemed to respect their sensation. He resumed 
severely and loftily, but perhaps a little commiseratingly : 

“I vow, on my crown and my scepter, Sir John, that 
with what armor, foreign or home-forged, you environ 
Scotland, and be it ever so well-tempered, I shall, like 
the Englishman who struck at your chief, cleave a gash 
so wide that all the rebel blood will gush out of the 
heart !” 

Sir John exchanged a sad look with his friends. In 
spite of their regard for the stranger guests, the English 
wore a tranquil smile vivified by the memories of victory 
which that silent, hollow image recalled. Sir John 
wished to meet this front with one as exalted. He 
cleared his throat, turned his eyes from the mournful 
memento, and said, as he eyed the king resolutely : 

“Before the deadly arm reaches her beloved heart, sire, 
you must overthrow the last stone of her last city wall, 
and slay the last of her arm-bearers! The old wives 
will take the feathers of the brooding fowl to trim the 
arrows — the priests will melt the blessed coffins to cast 
the bullets and the well-chains will wrap the great siege 
guns round before you cheer over a country where the 
mothers do not greet at war ! As for the Thirlstane who 


io8 Chief Trophy of England's Might. 

has the honor to speak for his king in your presence and 
that of the ghost therein! I was kindly regarded as 
worthy of my family cry, ‘Ready and Steady !’ There- 
fore, I should belie it if I stayed to breakfast, or did not 
eat on the road and sleep in the saddle ! For I itch, sav- 
ing your grace, to return to head the first troopers who 
march southerly — ho! to buckle with thee, your gentle- 
men and gentry, in battle — with one voice crying, ‘Thirl- 
stane, stand steady !’ ” 

Some bonnets were tossed in the air, but the Scots no- 
bly repressed the inclination to cheer this bold reply. 
Henry would have excused them, for he smiled blandly 
if not benignly. He loved a woman well — but a brave 
man better. 

Dereham looked heatedly at the Scot. 

“Would you dam the torrent?” he began to say, but a 
glance of his master repressed him. 

“Go, go, Sir John, and with what speed you may!” 
said the latter. “Let me not detain you on a good er- 
rand ! It’s a pretty device of your own, as I said in the 
first, but we have a many of them in England, pretty be- 
cause we act up to them ! But we kings of this land have 
our own which we have none of us let fall into the dust. 
Before the moon is old and young again, I hope that, in 
every town of Scotland, letters of fire will glare this 
motto o’er each citadel — so all may read ” 

Stepping back and to one side, he pointed to the motto 
on the blue ribbon around the royal escutcheon. And 
instantly the English exclaimed: 

“God and my Right!” 


Chief Trophy of England’s Might. 109 

“Dieu et mon Droit!” repeated Henry, retracing his 
steps so as to be almost face to face with Sir John anew. 
“My cousins, peers and gentlemen, give ye full honors to 
the ambassador — not of the King of Scotland, our foe — 
but of my nephew, James the Fifth !” 

The court broke up. Out on the space, the long-wait- 
ing multitude made the hedges for the northern envoys 
to retire to their inn of the White Saltire. As the cortege 
came forth, proud, cold and very haughty, the choristers 
in the royal chapel were singing: 

“The Lord the King is a mighty shield and a strong 
spear !” 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE KING'S CONFIDENCE IS A BURDENSOME THING. 

The bearers of the Scottish defiance had gone, but in 
Whitehall still seemed to resound the shrill pibroch’s 
chanter and the ominous boom of their drone. After 
them they left cause for much business. 

The king had a reputation for being indolent and negli- 
gent in public affairs, opposed to the maxim he liked to 
look up to, lettered in his study, “It is diligence passes 
sense !” but he had his spells of seriousness when he out- 
tasked his secretaries. At the end of three weeks, how- 
ever, he had fagged from the accounts of the navy and 
army, the latter to be sent to Scotland and the fleet to 
meet at Portsmouth. 

Thereupon was repeated his disappearances, rarely 
commented upon except with a lenient smile. Yet it was 
believed it was late in the day for him to waste time in 
carousals of the lowest, broadest order with cobblers, 
jolly beggars and such “gibbet-fowl,” as recorded in “The 
Merry Tales.” As these absences were found now to ac- 
cord with the similar absences of his astrologer, Fleming, 
and his favorite, Dereham, all was ascribed to a mingling 
of private pleasuring and occult pursuits, after which, 
undeceived as to both frivolity and transcendental lures, 
he would return to business again. 

Indeed, after presiding at the council board with much 


The King’s Confidence. 1 1 1 

clearness and a rejuvenescence dispelling the idea that 
he was gravely discussing certain matrimonial projects of 
European invention, he signed the last document of a 
sheaf with a sigh of relief, and, all alone, went out upon 
the gallery overlooking the gardens with view of the bend 
of the Thames at Westminster. 

A monster sweet bay tree sent up its aroma and a row 
of orange trees in tubs made symmetrical lines. But the 
sovereign was in no mood for recreating himself with 
floriculture. 

He paced up and down impatiently until he was joined, 
as he had sent a page to bring about, by Lord Dereham. 

The latter came with secret dislike, as, under plea of 
having to marshal his tenants to select those fit to march 
north, he was chafing to quit the palace. 

The king seized him by the arm, having a proneness 
of late to lean — and not too lightly, on his companion, 
and they walked up and down the inclosure in quiet and 
loneliness, as the king had been doing. 

The royal countenance was still flushed, and his eyes 
were brilliant. 

“What do you think, ‘Wolf,’ of our nephew’s out- 
break?” asked he, abruptly. 

Dereham seemed relieved at this recurrence to the 
monopolizing topic for that week. 

“I think that a king was lucky who could lay his hand 
upon a spokesman so respectfully forbearing while terse 
and outspoken in his replies.” 

“Ah, if you had been my mouthpiece to Jamie, you 


1 12 The King’s Confidence. 

would not have been able to contain yourself like Sir 
John?” 

“I am not a third his age.” 

“You are just as prudent, boy! Never did I meet 
with a stripling so profound and self-governed. As for 
Thirlstane, he is noted of old. He is a worthy Scot, with 
the sole flaw that, hedged in by his mountains and frigid 
with their snows, he believes we are under the thrall of 
Robert the Bruce and Sir William Wallace. He rates 
hearts as the same at five or six centuries distance, because 
the same cap covers all heads in his country. He is like 
an antique state still standing on a military road; his 
stony eyes not remarking that the passersby vary with 
each generation. Did you peer among his clan? would 
you find there the Black Douglases and the Ruddy Ran- 
dolphs? They are carrying their fathers’ claymores, but 
find them too heavy and clumsy for their hands. They 
are Sinclairs and Mexwells, whom he brought — who had 
second thought, of caution, before they plucked out the 
blades and strove to cut out their old hero-king’s suit 
from our court. Oh, the come-down in it !” 

“Dear my lord, I tell you that such men will not whiten 
a single hair of mine, whether I go into the carnage or 
send the Lord of Norfolk to combat in my stead. My 
sword is long and trenchant, but it’s the sword that 
cleaves — if it do not reach far enough in my hand, why, 
I can hurl it where it does not reach. A murrain on this 
James’ kicking at the pricks ! It is nothing of the pros- 
pect of a war with him, though France comes chanting 
Roland’s song at his back, which casts me down- ” 


The King’s Confidence. 1 1 3 

“You are cast down?” repeated the confidant, incredu- 
lously. 

“Down into misery ! But not the lookout north — it is 
the peep into my bosom, my lord !” 

He sat down on the stone bench, which lined the gal- 
lery by the house wall. 

“I am amazed that your lordship should be in misery !” 
muttered the earl. 

“It is odd, is it not? Triumphant without and within, 
after merging the White Rose and the Red into me — so 
that any man can don the hybrid without bringing a quar- 
rel on him !” 

Dereham looked closely at the speaker. Henry was 
firmly fastened not only in England, but even on the 
Main. It was known to the young noble, admitted to 
the council, that France would prefer to pay handsomely 
to buy back its conquered territory rather than try to oust 
the enemy from it by force of arms. Of the result of 
the war with Scotland the earl also had no doubt. Bribed 
by restoration of the lost provinces, King Francis would 
probably check any considerable flow of his knights to 
cross into Scotia. 

“May your grace excuse, but human ambition must 
be vaster than the world, since the world does not satiate 
it!” 

“You young sage, it is not the anger of waves and 
winds which wrecks a solid vessel, but ” 

“What?” 

“It is the little point, the hidden rock! Its wound is 
destructible because dne cannot get at it to heal it. True, 


1 14 


The King’s Confidence. 

is it, that I am great and strong? There is not one of 
my subjects who does not envy me — not one, not even 
the swine herd gnawing birch bark in the forest ; but I do 
not envy.” 

His hearer heard the sigh as an “Amen!” to this 
avowal with a kind of trepidation. 

“It is so,” he replied to the look of disbelief. “Weight} 
is the crown and one may pardonably look for a pillow on 
which to rest the head after the burden is laid aside. 
Weighty is the scepter, and one wishes to thrust it aloof, 
to lay the tired hand in a soft and loving one. Beside 
that glare of the hall where all the doors are folded back 
and all the curtains torn down from the windows, one 
longs for the shade of private repose. Grandeur of the 
palace! Where is the nook full of the happiness of 
home ?” 

Dereham was sympathetic, but something made him 
hesitate to say a word; he even averted his eyes. 

“Look you, the meanest of those who cap to me and 
crook the neck may have a loving wife and child to climb, 
crowing, on his knee, while the lowest, who would 
make me happy, is not so debased that I would not stoop 
to lift her up !” 

“My lord! you who have wed — who have had queens 
fawn and fan you ! you who have the prince to train up 
at your knee!” 

“The queen ! the queens — my consorts ! Do you point 
to the rigid Catherine of Aragon, stiff as the castles and 
haughty as the lions ! — who might have been a suppliant 
wife but for the domineering father-confessor at her back 


H5 


The King’s Confidence. 

and her nun-like cameristass always in the curtain folds ! 
She was espoused to my brother, who was blessed in 
avoiding that fate, though the price was untimely death ! 
This was not a comfort to my heart, but a sting for my 
conscience.” 

Dereham was silent, knowing that this scruple was a 
fundamental test of the parasite that hoped to cling any 
time around that royal oak. 

“I was forced, if I had respect for marital privacy, un- 
intruded upon by sisters and fathers, under their black 
gowns and gray coifs, to repudiate her and with that her 
onerous conveners. 

“You will say that the light and playful Ann Bullen 
was the direct foil ” 

Dereham said nothing; he refrained from a noisy res- 
piration. 

To parade to a bridegroom who believed that he would 
love but once, this array of wives was irritating. 

“Ann! fie! with the same light step she passed out of 
the nuptial chamber upon the scaffold. Do you say 
‘Seymour’ now? Jane Seymour — sainted Jane! Yes, 
there was an angel from the skies, but the begrudging 
skies recalled her all too soon! Yet, a little earlier and 
she might have escaped the poisoner!” 

Dereham glanced briefly at the choleric and revengeful 
countenance, and blessed his stars that he had not been 
prominent at Court when that queen was lost. 

“There is another Ann ! Oh, crenelation of contrasts ! 
the Princess of Cleves ! that huge faggot reported to me 
at the first as lissom and graceful ! Leviathan, lissom ! 


n6 The King’s Confidence. 

Behemoth, buoyant! But you did not see that thing of 
grease !” 

Dereham dared not smile, or he should have lost all 
favor in laughing at a fat man deriding his commen- 
surately stout spouse. 

“A man of my capacity deceived by a German court 
painter — as if a court painter ever painted without flat- 
tery’s brush ! Oh, Hans Holbein ! if you had drawn 
truly and colored without laying the tempting hues too 
thickly, your portrait of Ann would have been like to 
the ancient limner’s, which made the beholders die 
alaughing! She came, Dereham — I saw — and she — dis- 
gusted ! But she had some sterling faculty — she granted 
that there was a cheat ! She went gladly home, content 
that the King of England should remember her — as a 
sister !” 

Dereham shrank within himself at this outpouring of 
secret thoughts. Had not Lord Cromwell said : “As 
fatal to be Henry’s friend as his wife !” 

“What remains now of happy memories out of four 
marriages?” continued the king in one of “his black 
moods.” “A few days’ bliss ! and a long blistering of the 
bosom ! Twenty odd years of remorse and chagrin 
over wasted time! Two daughters whom the rules con- 
straining sovereigns declare incapable of reigning, and a 
son” — his voice sounded like a sob — “a son whom Na- 
ture declares incapable of living!” 

His auditor respected his grief, though he now doubted 
not that he would not be respected in his own. But he 
could not rejoice over this great hulk — a wreck of hope. 


The King's Confidence. 117 

“Sire, since you are in the prime, why may not another 
match make up for what has been so far lacking?” 

“That is the way the keeper of the gaming tables speaks 
to a player whom he wishes to keep on playing. “Keep 
drawing at the straws until you catch the long one! 
What do the old wives say? that marriages are made in 
heaven ! But, methinks, the wheel which shuffles the 
tickets is turned by an infernal hand.” 

“My great lord, the spider renews its web many times 
before it makes it stand and ensnare.” 

“It’s the other way about, Wolf ! There are spiders 
which weave to ensnare kings ! — even when they are in 
the web, too! No, no, my wise young adviser, no more 
drumming in the royal courtyards for a partner! No 
bellamour of the princely houses !” 

He spoke so emphatically that Dereham listened with 
avidity. 

“I am weary of furnishing material in my domestic in- 
felicities for the court fools. Out of these bickerings, on 
my heart rise terrible spreading flames ; out of my mis- 
marriage with the first of my Kates — my fates ! — arose 
the war with Spain, which left me the dupe of its ruler! 
And I was saddled with Spain’s daughter beside. My 
sending the blowsy Ann home raised Flanders and 
Hainault against me! My sending Ann Bullen to her 
just doom repelled the Rochforts and the Norfolks ! 

“As England is secured by her watery bulwarks, no 
alliance can augment my strength. I may seek solely in 
a young woman beauty to please, virtue to make faithful, 


n8 The King’s Confidence. 

and wit to amuse. The conditions under which she was 
born need not sum up a midget’s weight !” 

Dereham, seeing some fatigue in his companion’s step, 
kindly snatched off his cloak and, rolling it up into a 
pillion, threw it on the stone bench for the monarch to 
sit upon at ease. 

He plucked a flower and, separating the petals, 
hummed with stress the ancient ballad of “The King and 
the Beggar-maid !” 

“Oh, I know,” said Henry, smiling forcibly. “Or 
rather I am not going to caper to your piping! Your 
beggar-maid turned out to be a real princess in disguise, 
I believe!” 

“They do, in songs ! But,” said the noble, with uncon- 
tainable sincerity, “a young, beautiful and virtuous 
woman is a princess to the quick !” 

“Have with you, boy!” Then, becoming very grave, 
he said in his deep voice, which could shiver a drinking 
glass with its intensified tremolo: “I have lifted two 
men out of the base to be prime ministers of my empire. 
One was but a butcher’s boy, but he bore the mace with 
as much ease as the tray ! The other, a blacksmith’s bel- 
lows-puller — but he blew up a pretty fire and forged 
many an iron which the foreigner hastened to let drop! 
I may well let my country — where, thanks to me, the 
nobles have displaced the priests, and, by my help, the 
merchant will displace the noble — I may well let my coun- 
try owe its next prince to the brawn and lustiness of the 
common blood!” 

Dereham blushed. He trembled with resentment. 


The King’s Confidence. 119 

“A peasant ?” he said, but suddenly remembering that 
he had just loved and wooed and wed without prejudice, 
against all his pride of race and ingrained predisposi- 
tions, he blushed again, but like a scholar blundered into 
correcting when he was in error. 

“Yes, a peasant! Was there not a peasant maid sent 
to redeem our neighbor of France from our yoke, and 
why should there not be a holy provider for England ?” 

“St. George, be our guide!” said the young man, 
evasively. 

“St. George has guided me!” 

“To the cave where the griffins hold the maid captive ! 
To the Outland — a Fingal’s Cave — or Merlin’s Haunt?” 

“To nothing hallowed — nothing surrounded by ancient 
memories. Just a rustic maid, one of those remnants of 
the civil wars — found in ruins after a battle, by an old 
nurse, who brings her up as her own, of whom she was 
bereft.” 

“An old nurse — a battle waif?” 

“I saw her, on the upper Thames.” 

“On the upper Thames, my lord?” repeated the other 
with the faithfulness of one fearing to go astray of the 
route over dangerous ground. 

“Among the fens and meads of Isleworth, or Datchet, 
or that way out. Faith ! here we have a king of England 
who dispatches troops to the northern marches, or ships 
to the Gulf of Gascony, who cannot walk alone ten miles 
from St. Paul’s cross, without being in an uncharted 
country !” 

“Dwelling alone, with but an old woman? We are 


120 


The King's Confidence. 

far from the days when such patient Grizzels were under 
charge of dwarfs and hideous genii, then !” 

“I cannot tell by what secreted watchers she was 
guarded. I was warned that some great lord presumably 
was in the background, who feared that the lamb would 
be taken by the prowler/’ 

“You discourse, my king, as if you had seen her — 
spoke with her, this ward, worthy of a color-guard?” 
He felt his heart poised on a dagger point while awaiting 
the response. 

“I have seen her — and yet not what most would call 
'seeing/ ” 

Dereham did not catch the final words, which made the 
answer ambiguous. He said to himself, with death in his 
bosom : “He has seen her — the king has seen Cath- 
erine !” and clasped his hands. 

“The name of this creature, dwelling in utter ignorance 
of her stupendous fortune,” proceeded the royal lover- 
general, “will soon have to be laid before my state 
council, for the decision on the dower to entitle her to her 
lofty position ” 

All was settled; the king was going to make his 
charmer the Queen of England, if he could do so. 

“But before all, my friend, you should know it, since 
you must use it in doing me the favor I am about to 
desire ” 

“A favor to your grace, from one who owes your grace 
so many and plenty! It is already rendered in spirit,” 
returned the earl, for once feeling that he was a liar. He 
bowed to conceal his red cheek. 


121 


The King’s Confidence. 

“I thought so. Her name is Catherine 

“Cath ” but the rest choked the hearer. 

“It seems if we were foredoomed to Kates,” said Henry, 
laughing at his own well-known quibble. “But, in this 
case, on her, her very name blooms and has its peculiar 
savor !” 

“Kate? It is fatality!” 

“Fatality, indeed — I am always racked on these Cath- 
erine wheels !” 

Dereham could have struck him over the lips for the 
jesting. He leaned on the stone urn. 

“But that cannot be all her name ? none so poor but to 
carry with them the trade of their sire, the name of their 
birthplace ” 

“No; she is the offshoot of — who knows what stem? 
She was found on a battlefield — amid ruins — what mat- 
ters all that? We find her luxury, station, happiness — 
we must, too, find her name! Come, let us play ‘Ques- 
tions and Answers !’ This child of the people, of nobody 
— ward of the king — what is the name for her?” 

“Let the ward be a ward — why not a Howard ?” 

“Because you are allied to the Howards?” 

Dereham was silent. The Howards had been under a 
cloud since Ann Bullen’s fall. 

‘Catherine Howard,” said the king, slowly. “Yes, 
that sounds stately, and yet it is simple. She shall be a 
Howard for the chronicles. Then, Ethelwolf, be pre- 
pared to do greeting to your poor cousin Catherine !” 

“My poor cousin?” 

“They might have discountenanced one backed up 


122 


The King’s Confidence. 

sheerly by Fleming's prophecy that she was foreset for 
the crown of my consort, but they will hail her, who is 
supported by the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Dere- 
ham, as Catherine of the Howards !” He rubbed his 
hands with appeased excitement. 

“Fleming — that old seer has been the instigator of this 
grafting upon the Howards?” muttered Dereham. 

“Yes, this time his sorcery is most innocent and de- 
lectable! But you are restless ” 

Dereham was tearing the flowers of the urn to pieces, 
so that the shreds fell heavily at his feet. 

“Impatient to hear all,” returned he, sullenly. “It is a 
marvel that the old meddler can do innocent cozenage!” 

“My lord, you who are young and hale, you cannot 
do justice to the Fleming's ‘good parts. He is more than 
a magic-dealer — he is a sound doctor of the body and 
mind. Did he not cure you of the camp fever brought 
out of France?” 

“I should have grown out of that, as we do out of 
measles !” 

“And I — with simply tying a string around my calf 
when I felt the gout mounting to my waist, checked it 
— he anointed it with oil, and fired it, and, without my 
feeling the singeing, it drove back the agony ! Never 
have I felt the pangs higher than my ankle since that.” 

“Ah, if he can prevent anguish stealing up to the heart, 
I shall consult him yet!” 

“He has brewed drafts which put vigor into my poor 
ailing boy!” pursued the king, tenderly. 


The King’s Confidence. 123 

“l see that, though the soothsayer has been called no 
real friend of mine, he is pardoned now !” 

“I suppose, like most of his brother jugglers, he has 
stepped over the pale of laudable practices; but — let it 
pass.” 

“It is well for his sake that he tries to undo what his 
fellows were accused before the Privy Council of doing — 
we found in the garret of an alchemist, in Bell alley, a 
waxen effigy of Prince Edward, which was set on a 
needle before a slow fire — as it melted, so would the un- 
happy prince pine and peak!” 

“Well — Fleming was not of that band?” 

“One escaped, who — but I see that Fleming is serving 
you well !” 

Henry stamped his foot, though the rash movement 
cost him a twinge, after he professed that his magician 
had healed him. 

“If we but discover the principal who escaped the gal- 
lows! Oh, it is not Fleming, for he has fortified Ed- 
ward, so that he can keep the saddle on his pony for an 
hour, on Blackheath common. It was to harvest reme- 
dies from nature’s chest, not from the necromancer’s 
closet, that he has, I believe, explored every hole and 
corner within sound of big Paul’s bell.” 

“Yes, he has wide and intimate local knowledge!” 
sneered the earl. “It was in roaming around that he 
was seized and like to be hanged for a foreign spy! 

“That time you saved his neck ! Do you regret it ?” 

“Not so much as the gold he has melted out of my 


124 


The Kings Confidence. 

purse with the promise of making my life as long as I 
desired, to — serve your majesty!” 

“Yes, to prosecute this search for the secret of lon- 
gevity, he retires from the palace — he established himself, 
as now I know, in the Tower of Espial, all that remains 
of Needington Priory.” 

“He occupies the tower of the ruined priory?” 

“Yes, I allowed him to have the run of the abandoned 
ground on which I had salt sown, when it was dis- 
mantled ! Like the monks, he watches the stars there by 
night, and the flowers — of mankind — by day! 

“He spies from Needington Tower, does he?” said 
Dereham, interested. 

“He spied to some purpose — he spied out this jewel — 
this Catherine — and like Chanticleer, on finding a prize, 
he set up the cry for another to admire his find !” 

“He called your highness to Needington?” 

“To give me the lion’s share ! The other day, when 
you were refused admittance to my presence, I was not 
engaged in studying Lord Suffolk’s plan of war, but I 
was at the other end of Middlesex!” 

“At Needington?” 

“With Fleming, in his observatory.” 

“And you observed” — said Dereham, faltering, as if 
his tongue was beyond control. 

“That is, I viewed. Fleming led me into a cell, walled 
up, black as a chimney after winter! He bade me look 
down, and immediately, at my feet, there appeared, as in 
a frame of ebony, a view of the country, illumined by 
the sunshine, A garden — in its center something sur- 


The King’s Confidence. 125 

passing in beauty and charm all that one has seen in 
flower and bird.” 

“It was Catherine!” 

The king did not cavil at the enthusiasm of the young 
noble. 

“Yes ” 

“But this was not reality — it was on a cloud — a vision?” 

“Oh, Fleming had no secrets from me. It was an ap- 
paratus, a means by arranging reflecting glasses to bring 
objects near and so clearly!” 

“I know — the black cell of the Italian philosophers.” 

“You are right — he called it a camera nera!” 

“Then, you have seen — C-Catherine only at a distance, 
in the far distance?” 

“True,” he mused, while Dereham breathed less op- 
pressedly. “But such vividness ! Her eyes sparkled as 
if within a yard — her hand I could have grasped !” 

The earl’s hand crept upon his dagger hilt with which 
it trifled. 

“And her hair undulated — one tress came unloosed, 
and I felt, as it were, that it grazed my cheek !” 

Never had the king been so near being slain in his own 
palace. 

“Well, into that garden you must hie.” 

“I, sure!” 

“Yes, you and none other! That garden, surrounding 
with bloom that humanized chrysolite! It is ordained 
that beauty shall be furnished with a casket like the pearl 
is with its iridescent shell !” 


126 


The King’s Confidence. 

“But, after all, a glimpse — a reflection — if this is but a 
guile of the servant of evil?’’ 

Henry laughed. 

“Why may he not have painted this image as a decoy 
upon his magic mirror? There is no such perfection! 
Conjurers are like couriers — they confederate with tempt- 
ers to impose ” 

“To impose on fools ! I knew the proverb, though you 
have twisted it. Well, that darling was never tool of the 
designing. But there is more to tell.” 

“More !” sighed Dereham, like a wretch on the torture 
bench, on hearing the judge order another turn of the 
excruciating screw. 

“Fleming has drawn up the divinity’s horoscope!” 

“He! Then he must know her, you see — they are fel- 
low connivers !” 

The other shook his head. 

“He need not know what he divines !” 

“What does he foresee?” asked the earl, as if daunted. 

“His cast is that her worth, her beauty and her birth 
entitle her to the highest honors ! The powers on high 
have decreed that the kingdom will bow down to her, 
from its loftiest head to its lowliest. She is indispensable 


“The preservation of England?” said Dereham, cut- 
tingly. 

“To my happiness,” replied the sensualist, as if this 
silenced all argument. “She has her page in the history 
of my reign.” 

“So? I see that fortune still favors the fortunate! 


The King’s Confidence. 


127 


This rural beauty, who should have been courted to the 
accompaniment of her spinning-wheel, will flourish a fan 
with all the recognized ornaments of your court ?” 

“Surely as the king holds a court.” 

“A nonentity!” 

“A lady by her deserts !” 

“Well, chameleons do not dispute about colors!” 

“She combines Bullen’s beauty and sprightliness with 
Jane Seymour’s grace and gentleness!” 

Henry, instead of being angered, was pleased that 
Dereham’s remonstrances brought him out as champion 
of his new attachment. 

“I see — it is a non-such, as like to Venus as cherry to 
cherry!” He let his hands fall beside him in despera- 
tion. “Woe !” he murmured. 

“Woe? My recalling Bullen and Seymour! No 
omen ! May neither of their fates befall Catherine — you 
may register that prayer to prove the sincerity of my pas- 
sion !” 

Dereham, looking at him, felt his heart turn to a stone. 
This time, it was not a little fire which would soon be 
trodden out. 

It was the great idolatry of a dotard. Catherine was 
lost to Dereham, her husband, and to the world ! 

Henry had risen and went slowly down the steps into 
the gardens. Twilight was beginning to cover the scene. 
Dereham shook himself as one enveloped with a deathly 
chill, and followed him. After a turn or two the other 
had paused by a sundial. The king looked listlessly at 
its face, now clouded so as to be useless. Around the 


128 


The King’s Confidence. 

face, like numerals encircling a clock plate, letters formed 
a motto. Something altering the familiar line attracted 
his attention, but not sufficiently for him to understand. 
He was very distracted, indeed. Dereham looked where 
he had done, but saw more than he. 

“Your jester has been here before — he has corrected 
the legend,” said he, laying his finger to the line. 

“What does it say?” 

“It said: ‘All Hours Wound and the Last One 
Kills !’ ” 

“It is true enough, but ” 

“The fool you had from Cardinal Wolsey likes to 
amend the wisdom of our old sages ” 

“Well, well?” frowning. 

“It reads now : ‘All Houris Wound, but the Last One 
Kills !’ 

“What’s a houri?” 

“Fleming could have told you that — it is Persian for 
a beautiful woman !” 

If he had let the least grain of sarcasm impregnate his 
gibe, the king would at last have suspected something. 
But as his voice was excellently ruled, Henry did not 
move a muscle. 

“I am not like my brother of France,” said he, slowly. 
“He thinks all women are fickle — I do not — only all the 
needles would be steady if they were touched by the lode- 
stone of love!” 

“He thinks Catherine will love him!” thought Dere- 
ham, turning aside. 

Henry came to a conclusion. 


129 


The King’s Confidence. 

'‘Ethel wolf,” said he, “you shall be the judge of the 
basis for my great determination. It is you I choose to 
bring Catherine, whom we call a Howard, unto the 
court.” 

“To the court? I?” 

“While I speak with Norfolk about discovering she is 
his relative! Yes, you bring her hither!” 

“It would be with sorrow on the crupper!” muttered 
the young peer. 

“I can trust no other! You are a man of good faith, 
of thorough endearment toward me, and unsullable 
honor. You are as my brother — you should be my dep- 
uty! Select your escort of prudent and discreet gentle- 
men, and bring the lady here.” 

“Do you say ‘here’ to the palace ?” 

“To the palace, here!” 

“To you — to your grace?” 

“Oh, no — not so abrupt! To the apartments of the 
Princess Margaret. Say to the princess that you bring 
to her a poor orphan who has but just been unearthed 
from under the debris of the last civil war. She is your 
cousin ! The princess will be kind to any one under your 
special ward!” said Henry, slyly. “The princess will re- 
ceive her as one of her maids of honor !” 

“Honor?” 

“You can recommend her — many a Howard has been 
devoted to the Tudor!” 

“It seems to me,” ventured Dereham, with forced de- 
liberation, “that though a king may be never too speedy 
in making a war, he will incur censure if too slow in 


130 The King’s Confidence. 

making a match. Should there not be a reasonable inter- 
val between the divorce from the Princess of Cleves and 
the nuptials with — the Lady — Catherine Howard ?” 

Again Dereham would have brought his death upon 
him if he had not spoken this without feeling and like a 
grave counselor. 

“Cousin,” returned Henry, like one who in answering 
this was doing so to the hundred critics whom his mind 
brought up before it like a bench of judges, “how many 
days elapsed between Ann Bullen’s ascension to the scaf- 
fold and Jane Seymour’s ascension to the throne?” 

The earl was standing. He took a step nearer his lord, 
as if to be sure that his manner as well as his words 
should be considered. 

“No more than the undertaker required to lay the body 
away in the tomb — three !” replied he in a solemn voice. 

“How many between Norris’ disobedience, anent the 
said Lady Bullen, and my order for it to be punished, 
with loss of his all, rank, estate and life?” 

Not once had Ethel wolf heard his friend and master 
address him in this vein. But he did not wince. He 
stood as he had stood, and replied in the same unvarying 
voice : 

“No more than required by the lord high keeper of the 
seals to go from the Tower to Greenwich Palace — two !” 

“And how much time from the issue of this order to 
the headsman and the culprit’s death?” 

“No more than to swing an ax and bring it down !” 

Neither tone nor attitude quailed. 


The King’s Confidence. 13 1 

For the very first time, Henry found he was facing a 
man whom he could not outface. 

“Very well, Dereham! I see that you thoroughly 
know the story of my reign. Profit by it. Go your er- 
rand, the while reflecting upon it.” 

Then, leaving the earl, he went up the stairs, without 
looking back, thinking to himself: 

“That is a rare man ! Under the lion’s paw, he merely 
studied where he should drive his knife in ! I must weld 
Ethelwolf to me by the tightest bands. There was an 
earl called King-maker! Now, it is on my head not to 
let a later earl be called the King-breaker !” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


THE EGG OF THE PHOENIX. 

Without knowing he was moving, Earl Dereham wan- 
dered about the gardens. Another would have mechan- 
ically started upon the royal mission, but without having 
resolved to disobey, he ceased to think of his master and 
solely of himself as regarded his union with Catherine. 

He felt outdone in a competition for her heart. He 
had married her and thereby ennobled her, but the king 
counted on making her his equal by thus allying her with 
the Howards. He gave her his coronet — the king tend- 
ered his crown. He offered her Dereham domain, the 
king held out all England. 

Certainly he reflected, but not on the record of the 
reigning Tudor. But to delay any longer was to bring on 
madness. He followed on the footsteps of the king, 
picked up and adjusted his mantle with care, and re- 
entered the palace. If he had had the commission on his 
mind he would have descended to the stables and ordered 
out horses for himself and his escort. But he went by de- 
vious ways, all under cover, to the northern wing, where, 
near enough to the Strand to hear the noise of that busy 
street, yet ensconced in the thickest walls of old-ma- 
sonry, where Wolsey had kept his treasures, Fleming had 
his chemical apparatus. 

Drawing his dagger, he rapped on the iron panels in a 


133 


The Egg of the Phoenix. 

preconcerted mode. On hearing shuffling steps within, 
he called out at risk of revealing a wrath he could not yet 
entirely control : 

“Haste out, you churl of Flanders ! It is your disciple 
who wants speech of you.” 

Although the seeker after the forbidden light must 
have recognized the visitor, he had such good cause not 
to thrust himself within his reach without examination 
that he opened — not the ponderous door, but a small 
wicket in it. Dereham no doubt meant to conceal his true 
sentiments, but yet his unease at least was evident. 

“What am I to do for your lordship?” questioned 
Fleming without touching the formidable fastenings. 

“Let me in!” 

Hesitating no longer, as if he would run the risk, the 
old man undid bolt and bar and also shot back the lock 
pin with its large key. Dereham pushed past and quietly 
waited until he was shut in with him and the fastenings 
renewed. This confidence must have won him over to 
the host’s side, had he not been too fully enlightened upon 
his conduct. 

The space was divided into two apartments. The inner 
contained the tools of the chemist and this outer was 
library and sitting-room. 

“Are you alone?” and the earl spied into every corner 
by the rays of a very good lamp and some reflections 
from the furnace at high heat. 

“I am.” 

Another would have asked if it were the hour for the 
familiar spirit of all necromancers, but the initiate was 


134 The Egg of the Phoenix. 

too well informed to be a gull. At all events, the king 
had not preceded him to this retreat. 

“You will want the devils of the deepest pit to save 
you — you are in your direst peril.” 

“I am unmoved. ,, 

“Oh, we are all calm when there are ships out in the 
storm if we do not own the ships! Your venture is in 
peril, I repeat.” 

The old sage jerked up his bent arms and extended the 
thumbs outward, which is one way of repelling bad in- 
fluences. 

“Know that the king has been speaking privately with 
me. 

“It is not for the first time!” said the astrologer, with 
a grin. 

“Gibber like that again, and I will break in ypur muz- 
zard till featureless ! I left the king in intense bliss ” 

“May you ever leave him in that mood, and be that 
his for now and all to come !” 

“I know all that parrotry ! I learn from him that you 
are not content to work out and study his pleasure, but 
others’ besides yourself! You give a jog of your elbow 
to Fortune !” 

“The seeker for nature’s treasures does not do that for 
himself, but for his friends and patrons — for the world of 
his fellows eventually — without that disinterestedness, he 
will not be rewarded by the guardians over all that we 
desire ! His reward is a pittance to keep him still toiling 
for others. He labors for the pleasure of it.” 

“But it costs a fortune to fill the insatiable maw of that 


135 


The Egg of the Phoenix. 

furnace of yours ! I never believe that you go out of 
your way at your own expense ! You may seek the hap- 
piness and benefit of others, but — out with it ! What do 
you seek continuously for yourself alone ?” 

“I thought that you, from whom I have not had a se- 
cret that you could support the weight of — you know my 
quest.” 

“Potable gold, long life, some absurdity!” 

Fleming fixed him with his unquenchable sight. 

Apparently he concluded that this interview would re- 
sult as usual in his befooling the inquirer. Dereham’s 
recovered quiet hid the turbulence with which he had 
quitted the gardens. 

“I seek not long life so much as the renewal of life. 
But I am on the threshold at last.” 

“I have heard you say that a hundred times !” and the 
noble laughed, in spite of his indisposition. 

“Come with me !” 

A widow had been recessed in with bars of iron so 
that with three sides the wall, the other was a grating. 
In this cage, protected by wooden lining and a lamp to 
keep up heat, a mass of feathers, so it appeared, was 
flung on a heap of chips of scented wood; the whole 
smelled of aromatic substances. 

“You have never heard of the Phoenix, my lord ! You 
are to see what has been accounted a wonder of the 
world!” 

He thrust his lean hand between the bars and shook 
this mass of feathers. Slowly and, as it were, indig- 
nantly, a figure rose, carrying up the feathers with it and 


136 The Egg of the Phoenix. 

by a proud effort shaking them into their due order and 
place. 

Instead of the shapeless mass of incongruous colors, a 
bird presented itself to Dereham’s admiring and wonder- 
stricken eyes. The body was small, but the feathers now 
animated each with a separate and exuberant life, spread, 
and shot out, and jutted up as if the whole prodigy were 
a hedgehog etherealized This simile occurred to Dere- 
ham, though he was romantic and poetic. But apart 
from the enchantment in the grace of feathers of all 
sorts, scaly, long and hairy, broad and yet light, was that 
of diversity in hues, and the mode by which this diversity 
was produced. The observer acknowledged that nature 
had no bounds. The colors were all imaginable, in all 
tints and shades, accentuated by the effect of mottled, 
watered, and changeable, to draw terms from crafts and 
other materials; they were carried to the extreme. And 
all this variation went on as if the bird was conceited be- 
yond a peacock, which was to its magnificence as a ground 
bird to a pheasant. It was an ornithological kaleido- 
scope — a riot of coloration, a shifting which gratified the 
eye and yet teased it. 

Dereham, in contemplating this evanescent and yet 
constant beauty, forgot all — though what rested on his 
heart was the one grief of all his life. 

“Superb ! splendrous !” sighed he, so low that it seemed 
that he was afraid he would disperse the show by his 
breath. 

“It is the Phoenix!” said Fleming, feeling some of the 
awe and impressiveness of the glory himself. 


The Egg of the Phoenix. 137 

It was probably a bird of paradise, but the popular 
superstition would side with the alchemist in his naming. 

“The Phoenix !” repeated the visitor. 

“At least one of them, for I believe there are many!” 
said the seer, as proud of his superior lore as of the 
rarity. “But all the rest is true ! It is unique as to sex 
and it reproduces its kind in an unparalleled way!” 

Dereham gazed as if to have his fill of a vision which 
must vanish and would never be repeated. 

“Do you see this?” He held out an object which his 
companion did not see — so dazzled were his eyes. 

It was what is called a bezoar stone, an animal secre- 
tion rounded and polished while made excessively solid 
and hard by its long aggregation. This one was of an 
oval shape. 

“It is the egg of the Phoenix,” said the alchemist. 
“When one of these dies, after having made its nest and 
pyre of sweet woods, it is this which heats up within its 
decaying carcass, and, at the proper time, bursts into 
flame. Out of the remains, its vital germ finds the matter 
purified by the fire, to engender another such incompar- 
able bird !” 

Dereham slowly recovered his calm. The bird, like a 
peacock resenting a spectator too undemonstrative in his 
appreciation, suddenly collapsed; all the light framework 
of this fluff subsided as the nautilus vanishes within it- 
self, and, again, there was but a mass of mixed feathers 
in the bottom of the cage, concealing the head and body ; 
even the eyes, surrounded by a white rim like ivory, were 
hidden. 


.38 


The Egg of the Phcenix. 

“Well?” said Dereham, sharply. 

He remembered that he was angry with this seer. 

Rapt in his theme, the latter did not notice the tone. 
He was poising the “egg” and handling it with affection. 

“There being more than one of its kind, there is no in- 
terfering with nature’s kingdom,” said he as to himself, 
“in diverting this egg from its purpose !” 

The noble did not say a word. He set his back to the 
cage, as if he would no longer be charmed from his in- 
tention. 

“Let a man eat this, and he should, in his turn, have 
the power to rise from his ashes ” 

“You are driveling,” interrupted the earl with con- 
tumely. “Eat the thing for your supper, if you are to 
sup here, and not off the earth altogether. You have de- 
stroyed one of my fancies — as you have my greatest one, 
perhaps !” 

“There was an Egyptian lay dead nine hours,” ram- 
bled the other, forgetting him as he replaced the egg in 
a box in the wall with the utmost care; “it is recorded 
that he revived by eating of an ‘Adam’s fig.’ I think the 
text is corrupted ! It might have been a Phcenix ” 

“Your foul master take the egg and the bird! List to 
me! Despoil this credulous and rapacious king of ours 
of his gold — I have winked at that all along, for your 
teachings enlighten and amuse me — but when it comes 
to your depriving me of my treasure ” 

“Your treasure? Why, say, they not that to your 
lordship has been diverted the Peter’s pence which no 
longer flows to Rome ? What has the king ever bestowed 


139 


The Egg of the Phcenix. 

upon me but your grace has had as much ten times over ? 
You came to me, a boy, as it were, and I foretold you then 
the steps of your rise — privy-counsellor, though the other 
lords are grandsires to you! Keeper of the king’s pri- 
vate seal, his secretary, his friend, his brother — yes, that 
you will be!” 

His hearer waved his hand to hush him; under other 
circumstances here was what had made a statesman, a 
prince, a governor of him, but now the honors were hol- 
low. “The king’s brother” — like those royal brothers 
born oppositionists to the ruler. 

“You, Fleming, you have promised all this — much has 
been verified — it rested with me to bring all into sub- 
stantiality — but you have promised the king more than 
me ! Why did you not let him seek, without your in- 
fernal guidance, this new partner, fair, young, bright and 
bewitching ?” 

The old man tottered so that he threatened to fall. The 
earl did not lift a finger to stay him. He followed him 
step for step until his heels struck the wall. 

“Ah, you taught me too much — I am a seer, too ! You 
have betrayed me !” 

The magician saw that he had no defense but one, to 
him supreme, but of what weight to this incensed lover ! 

“You did not learn this, my lord, that the man a woman 
loves should never thwart her in ” 

“In that love?” 

“In ambition!” 

“What! does she want more than is showered upon 
her ? Do you know what I have done for her ?” 


140 


The Egg of the Phoenix. 

“It is enough that she is dissatisfied ” 

“She is all but the queen! Am I not the first lord?” 

“If she wishes to be wholly the queen ?” 

At this reply, the young man dropped his dagger, 
partly drawn, into its sheath with a snap and shuddered 
as if a whip had cut his face across. 

“Let her be queen ! Am I to die to let her be queen ?” 

“Would it kill you? Young hearts are elastic ” 

“Under the surgeon’s knife, perhaps; but in the living 
bosom ?” 

“It is a good test of true love not to be selfish !” 

“Dog-philosopher! The devil lines his bed with such 
self-sacrifices ! And you will lie in it before I make such 
sacrifices! I am in love. And in love like mine, there 
are no more a subject and a lord — but a man and his 
rival! For the prize we throw from the same box!” 

“But the dice are unequal, my son !” said the magician, 
wheedling, beginning to respire, since the dagger had 
not been buried in his breast. “For a king they are 
loaded — with gold, not lead ; but they are cogged against 
the lesser all the same !” 

“You needle-fine fiend !” 

He eyed him loathingly and yet with a kind of admira- 
tion. “But the love of gold obscured your vision, as the 
gold resplendence on that bird obscures mine! What 
else were you looking for when you went outside of your 
compact with me, your lord ; who found you the pass- 
port to come over into this country when I little dreamed 
of your impious errand — — ” 

“My errand, lord?” 


The Egg of the Phoenix. 14 1 

“I am coming to that ! I do not know what hazardous 
negotiations you have entered into with the evil spirits, 
but I do know that yours with the king will be to your 
disaster. Marrying Henry again! A man who repu- 
diates when he does not behead! Call that a king! We 
lords do not throw the silks upon the mercer’s hands 
after we have handled them !” 

“I promised you, lord, my fealty for all that was of me, 
man, and of this world, but I cannot fight with the stars 
in their courses ! When my own beacon blazes on high 
there, I must march straight to it, trampling what-not in 
my path. I heard a voice crying, ‘Do it !’ ” 

“Voice of your familiar — this Phoenix !” sneered Dere- 
ham. “It was not prudence ! Will you learn nothing by 
the things happening in your time perchance if not while 
you were in England — the down-come of Cardinal-Count 
Wolsey and the decapitation of Norris?” 

“My lord, I warned the former by letter — the latter by 
word of mouth, but he loved Ann Bullen, I suppose, as 
you do Catherine, and to you both those ends should be 
your warning — Wolsey, as the favorite and statesman, 
Norris as the lover of the woman on whom the king sets 
his choice!” 

“Bullen threw herself at the king — Catherine was hid- 
den up by the Rochforts and furthermore by me ! Who 
bid you go hunt her out?” 

“Science!” 

“Science? Which does not tell you that you will die 
for crossing me !” 


142 The Egg of the Phoenix. 

“No, but it tells me that Catherine will be Queen of 
England !” 

Ethelwolf laughed deep and long. But it was not a 
pleasant laugh. 

“If it tells you that, then, your science lies in every one 
of its myriad letters if writ is in the stars !” 

“It is written!” 

“Then there is a codicil which annuls all the preced- 
ing!” 

The laugh was repeated so lustily that the hearer felt 
confounded. 

“You can never bring about this marriage. You may 
smile, but I have you on the hip ! You are wise, book in 
hand, but I shall throw you ; you do not know your man !” 

“I know both men : you and the king,” replied the 
other, with much firmness, now that this was more a 
debate than a duel. “But I know the woman better than 
either. She is ambitious, not loving. But they are all 
aspiring like that — only, some reach for the crown celes- 
tial, the guerdon of true love, the domestic virtues and 
the faith and devotion to others. These are happy down 
here. The others seek the diadem earthy — they are never 
contented here — they must be glutted elsewhere !” 

“You demean my Catherine!” 

“I mean only to exalt her !” 

“Not out of my reach, or without my leave!” 

“Out of all reach — unless — ” he bent over toward his 
interlocutor and whispered for his ear alone — “unless you 
become king! She is fated to be Queen of England, 
mind!” 


The Egg of the Phoenix. 


143 


“I — I?” returned Dereham, shrinking, for not an hour 
before he had measured his sovereign as one measures the 
man he is to cope with in a mortal tug. “This is England, 
not France,” he said, solemnly, “where the first noble 
to murder his lord may wield his scepter!” 

“I don’t know your history well, but there was King 
Richard the Third ” 

“Venomous tempter! He came to an end untimely; 
he was slain by a kingly hand !” 

“A hand ducal before it was royal, but — it is the spirit 
that impels the sword — you !” 

“You will fall as the flakes of snow off a garment 
when one enters the hall with the fire. You choose the 
least fixed of points for your venture to rest upon — a 
woman !” 

“Ay, woman is frail, supple, yielding, but strong ! The 
ancients, when they sought in their fable to set the sup- 
porters of the world, employed the serpent !” 

“The serpent employs you, Fleming. You are lost! 
For the head you chose to wear the crown next — Cather- 
ine’s, it is ” 

• “Your beloved?” 

“More, you blind worm!” 

“Your betrothed ?” 

“Dullard, she is my wife!” 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE LIVE FLY IN AMBER. 

Fleming fell on his knees, bowing his head as to offer 
his neck to the death-stroke. He was assured that this 
was adamantine truth, inflexible, not to be palliated. 

“Mercy, I am for the dead!” 

“Yes, you can say your ‘in manus!’ and not mumble 
long prayers as a monkey munches nuts. You are doubly 
doomed, do you see. You are in my halter, for I am lord 
of the Needington ruins and can deal justice for your 
conjuring on my lands against my wife’s peace; and you 
are under my royal hangman’s knife — since you cannot 
pretend to the nobleman’s ax — as a prince of science !” 

His scorn was scathing. 

“Wizard, you have destroyed yourself like the most 
foolish among us, for do you not know the law promul- 
gated after the execution of Ann Bullen and her lover 
Norris, to say nothing of the minstrel Smeaton, who 
played ‘the devil’s tattoo” once too often !” 

Fleming writhed, and his clasped hands seemed welded 
together in the straining. 

“Yes, I know the law Henry devised in his fury and 
dread of another deception so humiliating. He consulted 
all the legists to weave a tight net !” 

“That decree drags you upon the same scaffold as the 
queen shown to be unworthy of the king. Ah, ha! you 


145 


The Live Fly in Amber. 

promised the master for whom you betrayed me, your 
master, a fair and spotless maid! Catherine is young, 
fair and estimable — but do you believe there are judges 
in England, who, to pander to their king, would divorce a 
Dereham from his wife? The slayer of another Ann 
Bullen will not suffice, though he bring the sword of state 
to reinforce the headsman’s, for they will have to cross 
blades with those of the earls and the barons ! Catherine, 
Lady Dereham, is another sort of personage from the 
Catherine of the old barge house on the Thames 1” 

“Yes, sir!” said Fleming, rising and trying to cling to 
the peer’s arm. “You are his favorite, and he will for- 
give you everything ! But she is destined ” 

“I am the man to step in between the lion and his 
prey ; much quicker to defy the lightning which threatens 
my loved one !” 

“His jaws may be locked — his nails may be pared!” 

“Again do you hint at regicide? Would you hold 
Henry while I stab? Or shall I hold the lamp while 
you pour out the poison?” 

“The poison!” stammered the magician, shaking. 

“Well, admit that he pardons me marrying my love 
without asking his consent ? That he lets my wife become 
mistress of honor to his sister the princess, and that he 
sends the Earl of Dereham in a high command to the 
battle front in Scotland! So far for me and Catherine! 
But as for you, there will be shorter work!” 

“Oh, he will not forgive me for duping him, for selling 
the dove in another’s cote! Oh, my good young lord, 
my favorite disciple, sue for me !” 


146 The Live Fly in Amber. 

“Pity for you, and grace, who by your pledge-break- 
ing for your greed, have snapped short the honeymoon 
of my life ! You have wilted a green hope ! Do you be- 
seech pity who have dragged a black veil over my brightly 
budding time, like the frost that kills the premature fruit 
buds? Who’s going to show pity to me after this death 
of all dear to me? Your Phoenix may revive from its egg, 
but there is no revival for my blasted future !” 

“Oh, help me!” 

“Seek the help of ” He stamped as if to evoke the 

fiend of all fiends. 

“Oh, you are fine of wit, lord ! You have sense out- 
vailing my wisdom! You know the court, the king, the 
craft, the bishop who has his ear — under his bluster is 
such hollowness ! It is a painted and gilded lion ! There 
must be a means of your preserving your wife, and I my 
poor life, which is so near being renewed !” 

“Is it? Had you found gold you might redeem your- 
self for this selling the flame of a candle, which is in an- 
other’s holding, for we are on the eve of a costly war, but 
your secret of renewing life will not save you from the 
vengeance of King Henry for murdering his love. Was 
it the same poison which ended Lady Jane Seymour’s 
life that you would use against the king?” 

“I — murder — poison — the Lady Jane!” faltered the 
other, pressed against the wall as though to embed himself 
in it. 

“Oh, Dame Justice is lame, but she is tireless. When 
you stop to count your gains she overtakes you. Am I 
lord on the Privy Council, not to try out the papers, to 













































































•47 


The Live Fly in Amber. 

serve my friends, and should I let pass the evidence in the 
case of the death of the poor queen? You are the grey 
man in the black vizard who called at Bell alley, and ” 

“My lord, you do not know ” 

“I know that Prince Edward’s mother died of the ‘wild 
bees’ honey,’ and that the poor boy sickens at the scent 
of honey to this day!” 

“There was the mistake!” 

“What, the child, not the mother, should have suffered ? 
Tell that to the king, whose hopes are centered on a son !” 

“My lord, it was a crisis then ! Henry might have 
died of the gout. There were his two daughters, each 
with an army of subverters — with that lady, mother of a 
prince, there was a third and eliminating party in the 
field. It was thought best ” 

“Horrible ! This was some outlandish machination ! No 
Englishman would connive at this ! Oh, villain to apol- 
ogize for this ! Name your employers and die — to cheat 
the gibbet !” 

Fleming opposed the dagger drawn, with his naked 
hand. 

“But the child lives !” 

“But the mother was murdered ! As I said, you are 
doubly doomed.” . 

“But if you still keep that secret, and I keep yours ” 

“You betrayed me once!” 

“Never again, my lord, as there is ” 

“No outlet but your death ! You dead, Catherine shall 
not be found. You showed Henry but her image on a 
floor through a glass. 


148 The Live Fly in Amber. 

“But you should not leave England just when your 
prospects bud — just when Catherine touches the goal ! 
There must be an outlet !” 

“Peradventure,” said the young man, gloomily, lower- 
ing his poniard. 

“Venture, my lord! You are so daring.” 

“It is hazardous, desperate!” 

“Say it, and try it.” 

“Thanks to your temptation, the king has charged me 
to seek out Catherine and bring her here.” 

“To him? Here?” 

“Here, to-morrow ! But the king must not see her face 
to face.” 

“Never, now, or we shall see the scowling stars no 
more! This eagerness shows that he loves her already — 
his first, his only, love ! I foresaw it.” 

“Therefore, since the king’s person is sacred to all, 

but the Scotch ” He paused and said, sarcastically: 

“Oh, if I were a Sir John Thirlstane ! Since he must not 
die by this hand — since I am not disposed to die by any 
hand — she must die — by your hand !” 

“Catherine die — by my hand !” 

“It is only a woman, and what is woman compared with 
a man who, thanks to the secret of the Phoenix, is more 
than man, because he can be immortal !” 

“It is true ! But — why should she die, if by a 
cheat ” 

“Now we have led you back upon your own ground, 
charlatan !” Dereham laughed, hoarsely. “Dissemble ! 
Cheat the king with the semblance of death !” 


149 


The Live Fly in Amber. 

“There are drugs ” 

“Not to be tested upon my wife! No Phoenix eggs 
for my tricks upon the king. How if that Egyptian slept 
nine hours and awakened ?” 

“The Egyptian !” Fleming let a smile spread over his 
features, no longer drawn down by fear. 

“I can do this — but rather, can I trust you with the 
operation ?” 

“If I do not imperil my soul.” 

“Tut ! It is a question of composure. If, despite your 
love, you can be steady, we shall save — her!” 

“That is enough. You and I are but pawns — she ” 

“The queen !” 

“You must be confident that you can gain my gratitude, 
to jest !” 

“Over-confident !” and he laughed. “The king deserves 
this for trying to draw down the moon.” 

The magician went to a part of the wall which seemed 
the most solid, but at his touch a stone came out on a pivot, 
so as to disclose a cupboard. From the interior, perfectly 
dark, he drew with assurance a metal box containing ap- 
parently one of the watch clocks of the period. At least, 
a low whirring seemed to betray the imprisonment of a 
spring. 

Dereham regarded him curiously. He set this case on 
a shelf, and all in the darkness of the evening, disclosed 
a clear yellow lump of what might be resin, but was 
amber. In the center, in a void, was a dark object of no 
particular shape that could be defined, since it was in ex- 
cessive motion. 


150 The Live Fly in Amber. 

“A fly in amber,” said the noble, contemptuously. 

“Look again ! Why does it vibrate and revolve so in- 
credibly fast?” 

Fleming’s tone was of awe, and impressed his pupil. 

The latter gazed and was fascinated as one is by the 
gyrations of the black speck on a bubble. Absolutely de- 
tached in the vacuum, keeping to the center of the natural 
area with unswerving fidelity, finding its balance as if 
posed on an invisible axis, and whirling with more than 
lightning speed, the mystery repelled while it fixed the at- 
tention. At the same time a light, without heat, a glow 
unlike that of deadwood, or of anything fiery that Dere- 
ham had ever seen, emanated from this oscillating atom 
and illumined their tensely drawn lineaments. 

Dereham found that he could not withdraw from this 
sight. 

“What is it makes that move so unceasingly ?” asked he, 
in a low voice. 

The minutest, as well as the grandest phenomena, have 
this quality of silencing the witnesses. 

“If I knew that, I should be master of the world,” re- 
plied the necromancer. 

“I cannot tear away my gaze!” muttered the noble, 
angrily. 

“Make the effort!” Dereham detached his eyes with 
an effort indeed. 

“That is the test,” said the magician, with some relish 
and pride. “You are fit to use this instrument.” 

“Instrument of what?” 

“Talisman to save us all! You furnish the idea — to 


The Live Fly in Amber. 15 1 

cheat the king with death’s semblance. I furnish the 
means — there it is. Go to Catherine as on the king’s or- 
der. But let her fix her eyes on this imp in the amber. 
She cannot do what you have done — avert her captured 
gaze at her will. She will sink into sleep, from which 
nothing can wake her save at your will.” 

“Is this true? Is this lawful ? Is it Christian ?” gasped 
the earl. 

“Surely, it is human,” returned the master, merrily. 
“If it is the devil’s contrivance, then it is a sorry devil 
that lets his weapons be turned on himself. Take it, use 
it, and when you shall have sent the poor Catherine into 
the slumber which will know no waking but at your bid, 
consult with me, if you weaken in your own conceptions.” 

This jeering stung the young man. He took up the 
box, in which he shut the curious spinner, never ceasing to 
turn while they had looked, and just audibly sending out 
a sound because it had a resonant enclosure. 

“I am trusting you, Fleming, with more than my life ! 
Fail me not, and I — well, I had those papers of the exam- 
ination of Bell alley poisoners conveyed to my own 
castle. Never will they be produced against you if you 
help me to save my poor Catherine. It is life for life !” 

Fleming bowed and undid the door fastenings to let 
him out. 

The tiny box seemed to sing to the heart that it rested 
lightly upon: 

“I shall save her!” 

“That’s his sole thought! Well,” said the magician, 


152 


The Live Fly in Amber. 

hopefully, “he loves her! To think that a man like me 
must rely on the love of a woman to defend my neck !” 

He went up to the cage, and in the dark inspected the 
shapeless heap of feathers, not dull even in this gloom. 

He took the so-called egg out of the recess and weighed 
it in his hand. 

“I cut this out of that bird, and it will die without the 
means of recovering its life. It is its life I hold. If this 
life can repeat itself, as the bud makes such a tree as that 
it was carved from, then I am a made man ! Out of 
the fire I shall emerge the superior of Pope and princes, 
for I shall live evermore !” 


CHAPTER X. 

“love's a mighty lord." 

Having now arranged with the conjurer what course 
might baffle the royal gallant in his new infatuation, 
Ethelwolf went direct to the cottage on his property 
where he had allowed his wife to remain following the 
private marriage. He believed that the nuptials were 
closely veiled ; the officiator was his own chaplain, and he 
had the authority from a bishop who was at odds with 
the primate. 

As for his servants, he had no doubt of their faithful- 
ness. 

When he came to the residence, certainly not befitting 
the bride of an Earl of Dereham, he found Dame Ken- 
nedy, over whom he had exercised a spell simply by hav- 
ing carried out his pledge to wed the parentless ward. 

She let him pass, smiling, by the doorway. He entered 
without announcement or being welcomed. 

Catherine was there, but more than ever absorbed in 
her dreams, and mechanically arranging her toilet and her 
excess of jewels. 

When she did perceive him, for he kept quiet, absorbed 
at once in mingled admiration and the apprehension of one 
whose treasure was tempting to all the world, she looked 
up at him with no surprise. She tendered her lips to be 
kissed, and left her waist to his arm, with a lack of 
warmth which pained him. 


•54 


“Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 


“Do you think this is becoming ?” said she. 

No longer did she set flowers in her hair and around 
her neck, or as a breast knot — she could not lay aside the 
gems unless to replace one set by another. 

“I should think more of your fairness if you retained 
among all those gewgaws one little token, that medallion 
with my miniature, which would prove that there is a 
spark of love amid all that coruscation of gratitude.” 

“Do you think I am fair?” reiterated she, heedless of 
his remarks, even to ignoring like an insult. 

“You are my St. Mary the Fair!” returned he, throw- 
ing off his pique. 

“Kennedy says that it is too much fairness for happi- 
ness.” 

“Pooh ! you are having happiness, are you not ?” 

“So happy, the globe, hollowed out, would not brim 
over with my fullness. You should thank Heaven, sir, 
that it is so bountiful to you, and kiss me again.” 

“If I can find a spot free from cold gold and hard 
gems !” he sourly retorted. 

He took her in his arms, but she returned nothing of 
the embrace, she was so listless. 

“I see,” said he, “why our neighbors, the Germans, call 
the honeymoon, as our old English had it, the ‘flitter- 
month!’ ” 

“Because time flits so rapidly?” 

“It does not mean that at all, though it looks so, mis- 
leadingly. ‘Flitter’ is but ‘glitter’ — the marriage month is 
tinsel after all !” and he sighed. 

“Lord of mine,” said she, “pardon me. My pleasure is 


“Love's a Mighty Lord.” 


>55 


marred by a foreboding !” He frowned, and took a chair 
near her, while she idly twisted and untwisted a fine grain 
gold chain. “I did not look up when you came in, 
though I was aware. I did not turn when you stood 
there, yet I was aware you were gazing on me. There is 
a quickening of my blood here.” She laid her hand on 
her heart. 

“I startle you!” 

“No, you depress me with your careworn mien ! You 
keep on asking me if I am happy — while I know you are 
far from so. Keep your chair in state while I take my 
place at your feet on this stool for the page or tiring 
maid !” She took a humble position before him, but she 
was proud and haughty as if she were condescending. 
“This becomes the handmaid of a baron — a knight — a 
noble — a prince.” He winced at each enumeration. “How 
ought I accurately to address my lord?” 

“To you I am Ethelwolf.” 

“It is ancient; it stamps the holder as due to a former 
race preceding the Norman, but — in a word — never mind. 
How did you come so noiselessly ?” 

“Your woman is ever at the door.” 

“Kennedy ? Oh, you have bought her over ! She sings 
your praises daily, hourly. But I did not hear your horse 
coming over the turf — your fine horse, Ralph, which 
shows by its pace, its grace and its highly-groomed coat 
that you are a great lord.” 

“I left my mount at — at an inn, and walked through 
the underwood. I did not wish to attract attention ! 
Never more have I wished to travel unseen.” 


156 “Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 

“You move like some one employed on a clandestine 
mission !” 

“On the contrary — my errand is one which should be 
preceded by trumpet and kettle drum, covered with ban- 
ners, and guarded by a mob tossing their caps and shout- 
ing their throats sore.” 

She could not understand. 

“Then, for such stealthiness, you must have powerful 
motives !” 

“Or powerful enemies !” 

“Is it your love, your marriage, that has sharpened 
them, multiplied them — laid them closely at your heels ?” 

Yet it was more curiosity than concern which dictated 
her questions. 

“Not yet has it come that I should hide myself — but I 
must hide you, my love, my other self!” He looked 
around him warily. If he had feared robbers to steal 
those jewels heaped on the table he could not have ap- 
peared more disturbed. 

“If you yourself are in no danger, what matters the 
rest, as long as you love your wife?” 

“Catherine,” said he, leaning over to stroke her hair, 
“doubt your future, the persistency of this bright fortune, 
my truth, my standing in the country, in the realm, and 
your own creed and soul ! Doubt there is a light of day 
here, brief, and a light of eternity hereafter, but never 
doubt this love of mine, for never since first a man loved 
the first woman was woman so loved by a man !” 

“I forgive you, my darling, as you must forgive me, 
even beforehand, in case I should weaken and doubt.” 


“Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 


157 


“Look at me! I am all yours, to the last breath — to 
the last drop beating here ! But still, Catherine, you have 
said that you do not love me !” 

“I have said that? No, I have never said that !” 

“You have — in your mind.” 

“You cannot read my heart or my mind, and you have 
no right to say that!” 

“I say it because we can never part, if you love me 
and I love you, yet I fear the parting.” 

“Merciful saints! what parting? We have scarcely 
more than met ! Parting in three weeks ! three days — not 
more than some hours ! Parting — what has gone wrong ?” 

“It’s the fate of peace — the perpetual reminder that for- 
tune is fleeting and her wheel turns swiftly — more so than 
time’s hourglass.” 

She trembled, for he seemed in suffering, a young and 
sturdy man ! If he were to die, where would come more 
of these trinkets, dresses, luxuries and extravagances? 
She looked really grieved herself. 

“It is over-strain !” 

“Yes, your forehead reddens — -it burns my hand — oh, 
you must be athirst !” She went to the sideboard and 
drew out a silver flagon, of which the arms had been 
scratched out so that she, though no adept, could not de- 
cipher the forms and learn whom she had wedded. He 
took advantage of this turning her back to slip the box 
with the restless thing in amber into a large case on her 
toilet table. To him the cunning atom, in suspense of the 
invisible fluid, sounded like a beetle impaled, but she heard 
nothing. 


“Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 


158 

Bringing the cup and flagon to the table, she impa- 
tiently brushed off some lace upon the floor and poured 
him out a cupful. Her hand trembled and she spilt some 
drops on fine linen, which also she carelessly flung out of 
her way. 

“Hebe, I thank you,” said he, taking the drink. “But 
how wavering a hand for a cupbearer !” 

“She would not do for the gods, would she ?” said she, 
playfully. 

“Nor for the king — hem ! stay there, side by side, as we 
ought to live, walk, and — die!” 

“How lugubrious you are !” 

“What are you waiting and watching for?” 

“Till the good wine cheers you ! but you are only the 
more moody! Is there no way to liven my lord? Pest 
on the loneliness of it ! No minstrels, no venders of bal- 
lads to stop at the door, no singing along the homeward 
way of the hinds leaving the fields ! Dame Kennedy has 
a stock of songs, but, poor old lass, her voice is broken !” 

“You can sing to me,” said Ethelwolf, dreamily. 

“In the olden time, when the counties had kings, and 
there were Ethelwolfs ruling Essex and Kent, there was 
one of their sons called Edgar ” 

“Yes, there was a King Edgar, what time an Ethelwolf 
of my father’s was Bishop of Winchester,” said the lis- 
tener. 

“This king had a good heart, for he married a vassal 
of his, the fair Elfrida.” 

“Oh, do you know the lay of the King of Angle-land 
and the Fair Elfrida?” asked he. 


“Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 


159 


“Who does not know it? Kennedy learned it, far to 
the north. But if you know it, why din your ears again 
with it ? Oh, you men of state, who have traveled 
everywhere, seen everything, heard all the music !” 

“No, it will have a fresh charm, sung by you. Sing to 
me, Catherine, that — or what you please.” 

She sang placidly at first, but soon her eyes kindled ma- 
liciously and she resolved to bring out the point of the 
verse : 


THE KING AND THE VASSAL MAID. 

“Down in the goat sway winding, beneath a rocky site, 

King Edgar spied the trothling all of forest-wight. 

He hastened down the banket, and called out, ‘Hold! and take 
My hand to cross the brooket, my sword to cleave the brake!’ 
‘Nay!’ quod she. 

‘Not hand, or sword? Still, listen! How if you were allied, 
Although a base-born peasant, unto a knight of pride? 

Then all would hail you Lady! of one who’ll, all-time, love! 
Then you could go a-hawking, gerfalcon on your glove !’ 

‘Nay!’ quod she. 

“‘What, would you rise still higher? Be Baroness? What, say? 
To dignity entitled, choice, in the court’s display ? 

Think of your stool, begilded, next to the regal throne— 

Think of th’ emblazoned cushion, for you, and you alone!’ 
‘Nay!’ quod she.” 


It was not entirely her notes that he heard, for in the 
box the nameless freak of nature tinkled constantly and 
insensibly mingled its vibrations with the singer s. Her 
wish to occupy the foremost station and his tribulation 

conflicted. 


i6o 


“Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 


“ ‘You’ve but to hail me Master ! The heart you have enflamed 
Will for a brace of kisses lift you among the famed! 

You’ll wear a dazzling crownet ’ ” 

He laid his hand on the case in which he had imprisoned 
the box. 

- — “ ‘where, at each j utting point, 

A pearl of price will glitter, and gold will weld each joint!’ 
‘Nay!’ quod she. 

“ ‘True, there would yet be rivals — and none you’re born to brook ! 
For the berries cut in ruby are yours, from your own Duke ! 
Duke, then, shall be your husband ; the foremost peerest stand ! 
I see I shall be blessed — you reach to take my hand !’ ” 

Indeed, Catherine, seeing that he had drawn the case 
into prominence on the board, involuntarily put out her 
hand toward it. 

“ ‘Nay !’ quod she !” she repeated, however, with a 
humorous smile. 

“‘The last throw! Will you Queen it? Say so, for I’m the 
King!”’ 

He sprang up, thrilled by he knew not what sensation, 
and she, by the shudder over her neck, seemed also per- 
meated by the mystic emanation from that captive in the 
box. Her eyes fastened on the cover as if she knew there 
was an answer to her chief question. But her voice ceased 
and, unconsciously, Ethelwolf took up the part, making 
the solo a duet in which each bore his or her part : 

“ ‘King ! who can trace around you grander than magic ring ! 
Ha! you should sway the scepter, and not the crook, I wis ! 
You leap to be my Esther, and give me lasting bliss !’ ” 

Catherine advanced to the table and laid her hand on 


“Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 161 

his, which, in turn, was opening the case. She sang cheer- 
ily, with her eyes brighter than any of the cut stones : 

“ ‘Yea, yea, yea !’ quod she !” 

She repulsed his entreaty, mute but imperative, to sink 
into his arms. 

The lid flew open ; her eyes were immediately fixed upon 
the ever-revolving mite, whirling with fevered action like 
a humming bird trying to release itself from being caught 
on a thorn. From that instant she lost knowledge of all 
else, even to the experimentalist in this precedent of hyp- 
notism. 

Her expression was that blending of abhorrence and ir- 
resistible attraction of the child, plucking flowers, sur- 
prised into staring at a viper. He dared not interfere — 
his hand was paralyzed so that he could not stretch it out 
to close the box. He could only participate in the spell 
so as to look on and listen. 

By her broken speech he could trace the progress of the 
singular coma. 

“What is this ? What creation of deviltry is this ? Why 
does it make one giddy with this tiresome, tireless spin- 
ning? Have you left me? Was it you threw the icy 
water over me — no, the boiling water over me ? I stifle !” 
She tore off a necklace, breaking the string, and the pearls 
rattled like hail as they bestrewed the floor. 

“Mercy, Ethelwolf, let me detach my sight from — is it 
a living thing — or a monstrous engine to drive me dis- 
tracted ? I feel a thousand feelings throng upon me — my 
heart will burst, my brain dissever its union with guiding 


1 62 


‘‘Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 


impulse! Kennedy! My husband! Love — take away 
the bauble, thou giver of tranquil life, and remove that 
lustrous, agitated perturber ! Oh, close my eyes, take away 
sight — let me be blind rather than endure this torment! 
Peace to my eyes, peace to my soul, which it is beginning 
to unhinge !” 

He closed the lid. But the relief was impossible. She 
still suffered the influence; she stared — it was plain that 
ever in her eyes that incessant fluctuation of the mite 
haunted her. Then her breathing, spasmodic, became 
gradually shorter and fainter. He took her in his arms 
and bore her to the settee. He laid her on the hassocks 
gently as if, since stiffening, she had become brittle and 
might break. Rigidity stole over her. He began to ex- 
perience a fear unknown to him. He never had quailed 
when he might die, but to have her dead like this was un- 
speakable woe. 

He called to her, but she was deaf. He closed her eye- 
lids, which submitted as if made of lead. He could not 
bear the fixed gaze. 

Rising, he stood by what had become, to all appearance, 
a corpse. 

He sprang back to the box, and, without opening it, 
such was his awe at its power, let the faint sound confirm 
his belief that its motion was unbounded. 

“Has it done more than the work Fleming promised 
of it ?” he muttered. “Oh, if he has killed her ! I shall 
care just to live till I denounce him to the judges to answer 
for his previous murder of the young and innocent ! But 


“Love’s a Mighty Lord.” 163 

no — this is a seeming death !” added he, taking a last re- 
view of his loved one. 

“It was the only course ! If I save her — well and good ! 
If she is dead — then I am the last of the Derehams !” 

Slowly he went to the door and called in a sonorous 
voice : 

“Hither, Dame Kennedy ! and all you, laying out in the 
copse awatch ! Come in and lay out the dead ! Your 
mistress is dead !” 

He thrust the petty instrument in this unearthly result 
within his doublet. None but he could hear the whizzing, 
but to him it was louder than his own heart-beats. 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE ETERNAL FAREWELL. 

The parish doctor had no sooner tested the insensible 
state of Catherine than he pronounced her beyond the 
reach of skill and science. 

As the lord would not let out the secret of the marriage, 
it was considered that her birth, though not published, al- 
lowed her being deposited in the family vault of South 
Dereham Church. 

To this place, showing all those brasses, monuments, 
and a fresco of the “Last Judgment/’ which were its strik- 
ing beauties before the Cromwellite troopers demolished 
and ravaged, the supposed remains were borne by a num- 
ber of the girls of the village and estate. 

As this crypt was a chapel, and the services were per- 
formed here by the same divine who had wedded her at 
midnight. So his voice was pregnant with feeling as he 
read the service, knowing alone that she was a wife, and 
his lord’s, too. 

Nevertheless, he did not make any remonstrance to the 
children coming down and strewing the bier with white 
flowers. 

“Felix culpa!” said he, “blessed blunder ! She will not 
repose the less lightly because of the flowers being 
blanched. Besides, sweet odors are the prayers of the 
saints — it is written so in Chrysostom.” 


The Eternal Farewell. 


165 


He set the example of bedewing the bier with holy 
water cast off a hollywood sprinkler, a return to ancient 
rites which no one questioned. 

Ethelwolf, sitting on one of the sedilia, that is, stone 
seats expressly placed in the funereal vault for the medi- 
tative who feared not such a retreat for mourning, seemed 
buried in grief. In reality, shocked by the medical man 
being so easily deceived, having heard no tokens of his 
cheat being even imagined, he dreaded that while Flem- 
ing’s singular mechanical soporific was efficacious his 
power to revoke its action was futile. But doubt is the 
beacon of the wise ; he felt his hope never thoroughly dis- 
sipated. 

Kennedy’s grief had unnerved him. She, so hard and 
impassible, wept and raved like a mother over the loss 
of her first-born. 

She called on the poor child to forgive her for harshness 
in her thraldom, for rough words and careless replies to 
her rhapsodies. 

Dereham felt his heart plucked up by the roots as these 
wails rent the stagnant air. He motioned with his hand 
for her to be removed, for, with his dormant power to re- 
vive the creature so profoundly regretted, these sobs were 
each a wounding blow. 

One of the little children, less in awe of the lord of the 
manor than the others, was the last to leave the vault. 
She threw a handful of water-lilies upon the coffin, and 
said in a sweet, low voice, which Dereham heard more dis- 
tinctly than louder noises : 

“Sleep in peace, our darling elder sister! for you were 


The Eternal Farewell. 


1 66 

too good for this life. The good angels above saw that 
there was one playmate lacking in their groups, and they 
called upon you to join them. Now your spirit is soaring 
above us, and you are wearing a golden crown.” 

The earl wrung his clasped hands at this. 

“Yes,” murmured he, “all her wish was to sit as a queen 
and see no sorrow.” 

“Enjoy forever your fadeless glory,” continued the 
child, while the priest who had taught her the little ad- 
dress nodded approval, seeing that his patron was inter- 
ested, “and as you loved us here, protect us from on high.” 

When all had gone, and the lord heard the children, for- 
getting the sad act, ramble over the yard and strike up a 
light air very different from the hymns, he shuddered, 
rose, and went over to the splendid old ewer of rock 
crystal which held the holy water; he took the sprinkler 
of branches and also scattered the drops upon the bier, 
draped with velvet like a peeress’ mantle. 

He looked around ; the door had closed, leaving him 
alone. 

“Fleming was right about that witching lulus natura. 
This trancejs like death ! If it were not mine own work, 
through that unintelligible medium, I should be deceived 
by the likeness. After ail, frailty of human existence! 
If I were stricken down by a dead bough, by a trip over 
a scythe left in the rank grass, by a sinking in the quick- 
sand, I who alone know the secret-releasing word — Cath- 
erine would die for sure ! Where is the spirit now which 
rejoiced in those smoothed eyes, which made her voice 
music, and gave buoyancy to the inert frame ! How far 


The Eternal Farewell. 


167 

have I banished it — does it still cling to that cold casing ? 
How is it gazing on that spin-wheel; it was benumbed, 
and, like the bear and the house-swallows, hybernates until 
the spring comes ! And I can recall it ? Oh, if I doubted 
that, I would die here and straightway join my fathers !” 

He looked around proudly at the line of memorials 
which told the progress of the Derehams during five cen- 
turies: Saxon monoliths, Templar knights’ effigies, 

tombs, stones, ancient crosses, bright brass, fresh cut stone, 
with tattered bannerets overhead and rusting weapons. 
Then he became sad again. 

“An irremovable glance at a tremulous, luminous 
point,” he marveled, with his eyes on the white figure on 
the bier within the masonry recess, “and the animation 
was frozen. What a lethargy, longer than sleep and 
shorter than death ! Is it cemented in there, in the hol- 
low of the heart, or flitting to and fro in immensity ? Is it 
like the flame of that everlasting sepulchral lamp? Can 
I blow it into ignition though it has died almost to ex- 
tinction? When it returns, at my bidding, will it come 
into its own again, like an exiled queen reinhabiting her 
palace, ready to forgive or to chastise him who sent her 
into that mortal banishment? Will Catherine have a tale 
to tell which will darken all the future with its terrors? 
Or will she have seen such splendor that evermore the 
world will look as through smoke !” 

He approached; the countenance was like marble, but 
no statue resembles flesh. She looked more than tranquil 
— she seemed happy. After her brief gleam of sunshine, 


1 68 


The Eternal Farewell. 


after being a noble bride for a month, hers was the peace 
of one fully sated. 

“She will not have that insatiate ambition when she 
sees me anew!” he hopefully said. 

Yet what was he going to awaken her to see? He 
viewed what was coming so shrinkingly that he wished 
the fates would clip his thread and that he could lay 
himself down for a similar rest beside her in that vault. 
They had not lived long side by side, but so he prayed 
in that sanctuary for them to die. 

When he rose, it was with his hands raised as if he 
felt the slab laid over his head and hers. 

“Fickle and briary world, must we renew, hand in hand, 
our endeavors to struggle through it ? Calamity or bless- 
ing? Will she bless me or curse me on her awakening? 
Or, in the future, which I cannot surely promise her? 
There is no certainty under our tyrant but these graves ! 
Am I to wait for a fresh one to be opened at my feet, when 
I might leap into one of these?” 

He kissed her brow, and it was neither cold nor warm ; 
it had no blood coursing, but it was not clayey white. He 
almost believed that the contact made her shiver. Did his 
voice not go down into the depth where her life had re- 
tired, longing to be summoned ? He threw off all caution. 

“Oh, Catherine,” he moaned, “come back to me out of 
that domain of annihilation ! I feel more than mortal 
man that I have the sway over your vitality; that I can 
draw you here for ill or good, for grief or gladness! 
Anything for us if we share dear life !” 

He must have had the will power which the magician 


The Eternal Farewell. 


169 

affirmed to be lodged in him, for this time she thrilled. 
A transient flush covered all that whiteness, but was gone 
like a blood drop from a thorn-prick fallen into a spring. 
There, spread, gone! 

"Joy!” 

But a doleful, harsh sound smote him ; the iron gates of 
the chapel yard were moving. 

“Hark !” he sprang to his feet, quivering with vexation. 

It was not joy, but misery, if he were discovered here, 
and the supposed dead revived, all his schemes were an- 
nulled. 

“Sleep again, and soundly !” hissed he to the corpse. 

But who could come here, the abode of the departed, 
which all simple and blithe souls shunned? He strode 
toward the steps, for, only know, he blamed himself for 
not having closed the door at the head behind the mourn- 
ers. Still, there was no number of footsteps out there. 
He ran up and peeped through the interstice of the door 
left on the jar. Then his heart leaped and came down 
like a bullet; he felt a cold which the sepulchre had not 
imparted. He had recognized that burly man whose 
tread almost made the sod quake — his royal master. He 
left the door untouched and retreated down, muttering: 

“Henry! Here!” 

He hastened with silenced steps to the bier, and re- 
peated the injunction for the stupor not to break. 

“Hasty fool, to bid her wake !” he growled. “Power of 
insensibility, retain your weighty pressure on those quiv- 
ering lids, and let them never open from their iron-bound 
clasp unless it is to see her husband, alone !” 


170 


The Eternal Farewell. 


Meanwhile the intruder in the churchyard had reached 
the chapel door. He pushed it with a kind of dread lest 
something within should resist or oppose him on his 
entrance. 

Dereham saw him pause at the stair-head, looming up 
formidably. 

“It is he ! What doth he here, where is written the 
line: ‘Debel lare superbos!’ (down with the proud). If 
he slipped on those stones I would not unlock my elbow 
joint to break the fall !” 

“Dereham! Ethelwolf! — is not the lord here?” said 
Henry, in a voice strangely hushed for him who rarely 
used abated breath. 

“I am here !” said the earl, but staying by the post of 
deathwatch, stubbornly. 

But, on the visitor to the temple of the dead reaching 
the bottom of the flight, and becoming used to the crypt 
lamp, the younger man slowly left his place and offered 
his arm. Henry leaned on him, a token of favor, but here, 
in the solitude, a proof that he needed both moral and 
physical support. 

“I received the incredible tidings that the woman was 
snatched away from my faithful messenger by death, so 
interrupting your mission. Is it here they brought her ?” 

“She is over there,” pointing to the bench on which the 
bier was set, preliminary to the transfer into the open 
vaulted shelf. 

“It looks as if she slept!” said Henry, in a muffled 


voice. 


The Eternal Farewell. 


171 

“Yes, she sleeps. Sleep on, Catherine/’ said he, but to 
himself. 

“I thank you, lord, for having given her shelter in your 
chapel. This is a last home worthy of a Howard, as we 
made her out to be. Ah, when adversity comes and leaves 
us alone a friend like you is an inestimable boon.” He 
embraced him, Dereham not returning the acclade, but 
remaining insensible, as though the chill of the charnel 
house froze him. 

“But I give you my plight that she shall not long in- 
trude among your saints and heroes. Before a week she 
shall rest, not to be disturbed again, at Westminster ” 

“In the Abbey!” said Dereham, with horrified rebuke. 

“I honor in her what she was intended to be.” 

“How intended? Has not her premature death foiled 
the assurance of the lying astrologer that she was des- 
tined ” 

“Spite of all, she will ever be, though dead, the object 
of my adoration, respect and adulation.” 

“What a root the beauty struck!” thought the earl. 
“Ah, will not my master passion check this master’s pas- 
sion ? How is it I see your grace here, and unattended ?” 
he demanded, almost wrathfully. 

The king answered with unheard-of meekness: 

“I wished to see her once more before the catafalque 
comprised her and the stone was rolled over in the Abbey. 
When your courier reported that you had found poor 
Catherine dead, and could but render her the last honors, 
and not such as I directed to be lavished upon her, I 
would not, could not, believe the black news. You will 


172 


The Eternal Farewell. 


understand me, you, Ethelwolf, though I would stand un- 
flinchingly before my throne flung down, the word of 
that girl’s death made my heart swell and these eyes of 
mine, dried-up wells, overflowed as not since Jane Sey- 
mour was likewise hurried away. Are nothing but tombs 
to mark my domestic path? Yes, I was driven by an im- 
pulse more despotic than any of mine to behold that 
statuesque being once more, whose semblance should be 
copied by art that posterity might see what once was a 
flash of heaven upon my reign. My friend, it is dark 
here, but I plainly see that you sympathize with me, and 
that endears you more. ‘Non ignore mali!’ as the mourn- 
ing queen of old said — you, too, have known what sor- 
rows are, though you are so young compared with me.” 

Dereham shook himself free as if he could not bear 
the touch. He went and took up the lamp, which he car- 
ried to the bier. He set it on a sconce for that purpose, 
of which the brazen reflector sent a beam all along the un- 
conscious Catherine. He pulled down the winding sheet 
off the head; he swept aside the stray lily flowers. He 
drew his dagger, trimmed the wick with it, and with it 
pointed to the head illumined with a green tinge and like 
a sepulchral figure. The shadow was in the sockets and 
under the chin ; the effect was unearthly, and Henry could 
distinguish nothing to suggest that life lingered. 

“Look upon that, sire!” said Dereham, as if he were 
an avenger indicating the victim to a slayer. 

“Dead 1” said the king, three times. His gaze became 
fixed. “Ah me, I must have offended the Giver of Life !” 
He bowed as if in prayer. 


The Eternal Farewell. 


173 


“Yes,” grimly said the earl, and with irony, “does it not 
look as if we were in a tribunal and the judges regarded 
you and I, ‘the cadaver being present/ as if you or I were 
guilty of this homicide ?” 

“A star was rising over England and me,” said Henry, 
without having heard the jeer, “presaging ineffable bliss. 
But the north wind sprang up and passed over its shining 
face, and lo ! our delight was not ! Perhaps this woman 
would have made me more just and better, for such 
brightness would have dispelled my soul darkness. 
Wretched human power, so mighty to destroy, so paltry 
to restore human life !” 

“Yes, there is no king who can make that inert form 
rise and smile again !” said Dereham, with an incompre- 
hensible taunting accent, for it was clear that Fleming 
had not dared to reveal aught to his patron. 

“No king — no man, unless my magician ” 

“Sire, in Heaven’s name do not profane my ancestral 
sanctuary with that infidel who dabbles in deviltry !” 

“Pshaw ! what avails his arts ? What avails my being 
the Eighth Henry, a king of England, as great as Fran- 
cis of France and as rich as Charles of the Empire? I 
can send a fleet to one end of the world, and an army to 
the other ! I have only to beat with my lance butt on my 
London gates to have a nation leap up in battle array; 
but how feeble is all this before a squared hole encased 
in marble ! The battle-ax is broken against the goodman 
delver’s spade! I can load the highest with chains, and 
I cannot relieve this woman of the icy links of death !” 

He seized one of the dangling hands and bowed over 


174 


The Eternal Farewell. 


it. He offered his neck to the dagger, but Dereham 
would not strike even him, with back turned. 

“Royal hands!” gibed he, “royal incapacity! I cannot 
straighten out one of these little fingers — I cannot warm 
a drop of this congealed blood.” 

“It is well you cannot,” thought the earl, “for, if they 
warmed, God save Prince Edward ! He would be pro- 
claimed king to-morrow !” 

“Catherine, my spouse!” 

“Your spouse!” echoed Dereham, letting the poinard 
fall ; it rang on the stones, but neither heard it, so intent 
were they each gn his unique thought. 

Henry drew that ring from his finger which was the 
convincing evidence of his mighty will ; with that, Dere- 
ham could have slain the archbishop at the high mass, 
and, showing that, hold up his absolution. The king with 
difficulty, till the finger relaxed, to Dereham’s affright, 
pushed it slowly around the joints. 

“At least, in the grave, wear this band which you could 
not display to the host upon my throne!” said he. “Ah, 
would it were the ransom to redeem your captive, oh, my 
dread brother, King Death! What is your price that 
Harry of England can pay, for a year’s breath — a month’s 
breath, to revive this petrification?” 

The only witness held his breath as if it might revive 
the woman too soon. 

A horrid carrion fly, black as jet, had fluttered about, 
and now fell on the lamp, where, having immersed itself 
in the oil, it formed an addition to the wick and redoubled 
the flame. By this spitting and flickering excess a kind 


The Eternal Farewell. 


175 


of movement was given to all things; the rags of war 
flags waved, the statues nodded and leaned forward; the 
shroud fluttered its folds, the figure seemed no more ut- 
terly dead. 

“If her lifeblood is flowing/' muttered the lord, “then 
may his ebb!” 

“Heavenly justice,” said the king, kneeling as to a 
shrine, “hast thou two balances in which to weigh the 
destiny of sovereign and subject? Can the angel of the 
bottomless pit go into the palace as into the cot and rive 
away the good and gentle as well as the grand and ter- 
rible ? Cannot the royal knee bending, as you see ; cannot 
the crowned head, lowering ; cannot the proud voice beg — 
can nothing of us elect obtain more than the vile herds- 
man in his hovel — where his beloved lies, like this ! Ah, 
when of yore the bereaved came to Thee, O Lord, and 
when the captains, merchants, simple peasant mothers be- 
sought Thee to revive their dead, Thou turnest not a deaf 
ear! Here, in Thy holy fane, the king implores to hear 
the gladsome word : ‘Rise !’ ” 

“Sire, do not linger here !” interrupted Dereham, 
trembling with apprehension, for it seemed to him that 
Catherine stirred. “Such regrets, such appeals, are pro- 
fanation ! Such words are raillery, and only tempt Provi- 
dence !” 

He helped the king to his feet — in his excitement he al- 
most dragged him up. He stood between him and the bier. 

“Am I to leave ?” stammered the king, like an old man 
suddenly helpless; “am I to quit here? No, I cannot tear 
myself from where she is !” 


The Eternal Farewell. 


176 

“Sire, sire!” continued Dereham, in a frenzy, keeping 
himself a living screen between the royal eyes and that 
attraction, “let this newly dead rest, or those who died 
all along the ages will spring out and drive us hence for 
intruding on their repose. Come, come!” 

And exerting a strength impossible to resist, he urged 
the other perforce to go up the steps and through the 
door. 


CHAPTER XII. 


QUIT NOT CERTAINTY FOR HOPE. 

The lamp had recovered from burning the fly, and with 
its flame perfectly steady and upright, the stillness was 
also complete in the vault. 

Presently a sigh intelligible stole out from the bier and 
ascended to the shadowy barrel-roof. 

“God’s blest Mother!” came from Catherine’s lips. 

On regaining consciousness it came with singular feel- 
ing; she was averse to being moved and to move, but 
superior power bade her stir, stretch and relax her 
muscles. She sat up and shook off a more than leaden 
sleep, for it had none of the characteristics of a narcotic. 
Her eyes were open, but for a time she did not see the 
lamp with understanding what it was. Her chief sensa- 
tion was of cold. 

Her forehead was compressed, and, though she rubbed 
it, it felt as if a crown encircled it. Her hands dis- 
lodged a wreath of flowers. 

“Did I lay me down with those trumpery roses, which 
Kennedy may have gathered, about my neck ? Ken- 
nedy !” she called several times, but the peculiar dull beat- 
ing back of her voice alarmed her. 

“Ethelwolf !” she called, soon again, with a firm belief 
that, if he came, she need not be distressed. 

At last, she saw the lamp. She thought that it was a 


178 Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 


star shining in out of the dark, and it had so awakened 
her. Then she recalled that, going to look at a fresh 
trinket in her presents, heaped up on the toilet table, one 
bright spot had drawn her monopolizingly to gaze at it. 
She had fallen off into senselessness while so gazing. 

But this lamp, of an odd shape, dark bronze, with too 
steady a greenish flame, and its place on a metal platter, 
with a reflecting disc behind it 

“Oh,” screamed she ; “it — it is ” 

But she feared to tell what she saw confining her. She 
shut her eyes, and lay down again, but instantly the cold- 
ness of her pillow, green rushes under a cloth, repelled 
her. 

But a grisly terror disgusted her ; she found courage to 
sit up, to slide off the bier, not without turning it; she 
staggered, but held up by a lectern, which tilted, and there 
fell a prayer-book. 

Dimly, she recognized some of the features, which told 
her it was a holy structure. 

She walked like one taken off a rack and almost dis- 
located. 

She ran against the lowermost of the stone steps. Her 
hand, groping, met the granite wall, dripping with damp. 

She had lived on the barge; she had lived in the cot- 
tage — but never had she felt stone walls around her. 

Entangled in her winding sheet, dragged with her, she 
suddenly had enlightenment come. 

“I am among the dead !” said she, in the voice we use 
when afraid what we say is true. 

She flung the shroud from her in disgust. 


Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 179 

“My blessed patron saint and her wheel between me 
and evil ! Where am I ?” 

Her stupor held her as in chains at finding she was in 
the funeral vault, in the very midst of the dead. What 
if they were to lift those slabs under her feet, push open 
the doors banded with iron, step out of those niches? 
Nothing but the lamp, burning so pitilessly, steadily, like 
the northern star, when one sinks in the perpetually rising 
drift and looks up to the snowy heaven for respite. She 
could believe she was embedded in the earth. 

Her eyes, inured by this to the gloom, discerned one of 
the statues which happened — for most were uncouth and 
grotesque — to be angelic ; it seemed poised on one foot, as 
if its wings could lift it. 

She held out her arms to it, and prayed that the enemy 
should not follow her and prevail. 

But, since nothing moved toward her — she heard noth- 
ing to appall her farther — she began to reflect. 

How could she be here ? 

A bride — a mistress over a little cottage, but sure that 
her mate was a great and rich man — how could she have 
been made to exchange her couch, elegant and luxurious, 
for this stony bed ? 

Such was the calm that she forbade her timorous soul to 
be daunted, vexed, and go mad. 

She tried to remember what had occurred before this 
odd inclusion of her among the ashes. 

Yes, Ethel wolf had come and caught her decking her- 
self, certainly, for the gala, not the funeral. There was 


180 Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 

nothing before she forgot all but the strange jewel of pre- 
ternatural luster at which she had stared in its box. 

She must have sunk into his arms, and he had thought 
her dead. Thinking her dead, she had been dressed for 
the grave, and here she had been immured. 

Here! Where? 

Something glittered on the floor ; a dagger. She took 
it up. Had she known the peerage and heraldry, per- 
haps she would have defined from the carved hilt that it 
had belonged to the Earl of Dereham. She knew that 
was a coronet, that is all. Against the only foes she could 
expect to assail her here, the blade was vain, but the cross 
was more potent. Armed with this, she renewed her 
courage. 

There were no windows in this crypt — only airholes. 
She had come again to the steps. 

They would not think that idlers would wander in here 
— no more than that a locked door would keep the disem- 
bodied in ! She mounted the steps, but the door was 
firm ; Dereham, to prevent his master retracing his track, 
had fastened it. Desperate, she tried to cleave the bolt 
with her dagger, but it resisted. She was forced to stand 
on the landing, and ponder on her strait. 

But it was a ghastly view up there ; the one ray of com- 
fort, where it was so comfortless, was the lamp. She re- 
turned to where it was set, and, thrusting the dagger into 
her girdle, folded her hands in prayer. 

“Mercy on me!” she implored. “Oh, I will be the 
slave of him who releases me from this worst of all dun- 


Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 1 8 1 

At the first opportunity, Ethelwolf had let the king dis- 
charge him from attendance. He hurried back to the 
chapel. He unlocked the door, and, at the first glimpse, 
spied the bier overturned. He raced down, and was hor- 
rified at the sheet trailing on the stones, without vestige 
of the occupant. 

“Fury!” ejaculated he. “Did he raise the devil, and 
have we lost her?” But, recalling himself, he added, 
scolding : “It is not such as Catherine as are prey to Beel- 
zebub.” 

But Catherine was gone! He called out and more 
loudly. 

“I am here !” cried she ; and, with one leap, she was by 
his side. 

In her uncontainable ecstasy, she enfolded him with her 
arms ; she kissed him, frantically, and sobbed with laugh- 
ter dreadful to hear, the delight was so strained. 

“Joy, darling, my husband ! Ethelwolf, you are here ! 
I am saved!” 

“In truth, you are saved !” 

“What has happened?” 

“That you were dead, but that you are alive ! Be sure 
that this is life ! But it must be for me alone !” 

“Yes, for you alone! But let us go forth, since you 
have the means to enter and leave ! I gasp for air — the 
open air — to breathe !” 

He wrapped his cloak around her. But the king’s men, 
although he had departed, were waiting to hear his 
friend’s orders about this woman, whom their master had 
loved and wished to have interred in the royal chapel. 


1 82 Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 

“I beg a few minutes for the sake of our love ! It has 
escaped a tremendous danger !” 

“And I!” She did not know well what she was say- 
ing, as she clung to him heavily. “It is well, all you say !” 
She was suffering lest he quitted her. “Never again 
leave me! How did you know that you should find me 
here? For I was lying in one of those stone chests, I 
think. What place is this ?” 

“The family vault of my forefathers.” 

“Yes, you have the right to be here; but how came you 
to me so timely, running as to a goal — like my good angel 
to restore me to the sweet earth, the blessed sunshine, and 
to save more than my life — my senses ?” 

“To restore you for our happiness !” 

“Yes, yes, for happiness !” said she, mechanically. 

“I will tell you all, for the time has come for me to 
have no more secrets from my one best beloved ! And it 
is the place for truth. In the presence of the dead one 
does not lie !” 

“Oh, am I to know what you are?” 

“Yes ; and I can the more proudly avow it as these an- 
cestors never heard any voice reproach them for fault, or 
sin, or crime! Look on those names, chased in brass or 
cut in stone; they are gems on the pages of England’s 
story — those are earls of Dereham !” 

“Dereham! You are an earl — a duke?” 

“Peer of the realm, my Catherine!” 

“You must be among the foremost !” 

“I am the foremost ! It is the king alone who takes a 


Quit "Not Certainty for Hope. 183 

step before me. He is, plainly, our elder brother — for 
we peers are his brothers ! The least of us his cousins !” 

“Cousin to the king? Then I share in this — in these 
honors, prizes, position, fortune?” 

“When I gave you my heart, did not all of mine go with 
it? On them all, and for them all to be your enjoyment, 
I am ready to offer my life !” He made a gesture, for his 
illustrious foregoers to witness this vow. 

Catherine had forgotten where she stood. With as much 
placidity as though she were in her previous abode, she 
asked, eagerly, on this point only : “This means that I am 
going to court ?” 

“Listen,” said he, evasively. “I — you ” 

“I shall be in the court — I shall be presented to the 

king, to the princess, to the ” 

“Listen !” and he frowned at this fixed idea of hers, 
which irritated him like a rankling thorn, burying itself 
deeper and more deep in the minute wound. “Before you 
are presented to King Henry, you ought to know some- 
thing of him, of his fell passions, sanguinary, self- 
licensed ” 

“The songs, the tales — something came to me through 

my nurse’s tattle of him ” 

“Well, I know him as the ballad-mongers do not — I 
know him in earnest, not in jest! No sooner did I find 
you, lovely among women, a cynosure, and I fell into love 
with you, than dread shot into the race, and thereafter 
accompanied love in his chase. I thought all the time 
of the royal lion — that is, glutton ! And I trembled at 
the bare notion of your dwelling so near the palace — den 


184 Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 

of the tyrant greed! Nothing is sacred to him! He 
would tread this hallowed dust in pursuit of a chance ob- 
ject! His breath tarnishes the most exalted lady’s fame! 
Therefore, I held back from him my love, as I did from 
you the publishing of my quality and proximity to the 
crown. I fear that some rashness, some hastiness of 
yours might cross my happiness, based wholly upon you. 
Thus passed my felicity troubled by that impending 
Sirocco of the burning and thirsty deserts. I could see 
you only at periods, for in the main my time had to be 
yielded up to the jealous, all-desiring master. To ac- 
count for my change — for I had become steadfast, who 
was varying ; moody, who was merry, and, withal, absent, 
who was prompt with quip and repartee, and quite the 
meddler in every man’s suit — I feigned that I dared not — 
I, overbold, set my cap at the Princess Margaret ” 

“Oh, you, coupled with the princess — the king’s own' 
sister ?” 

“You have it. But it was you who occupied all my 
heart and soul !” 

“A princess my defeated rival?” murmured Catherine, 
with sparkling eyes. 

“In the court as in the woodland, in cot or in the gar- 
dens, your memory quitted me never for an instant !” 

“I knew that well, darling ; but you gave me no reasons 
then.” 

“Well, there was reason, and to spare; all that I fore- 
saw has come in its fullness ! The king ” 

“Yes, the king?” with a world of meaning in her short 
question. 


Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 185 

“He — he has seen you !” 

The depth of woe in his tone was equaled in intensity 
by the depth of thankfulness in her aspect. 

“I have been seen by the king?” then incredulous, like 
one doubting an unexpected though desired godsend, she 
uttered : “I, so secluded, so jealously guarded by a hus- 
band, who was also a lover !” 

“He saw you as one sees something in a mirror. By a 
magical contrivance. But it must be as if he had not 
had even that similitude. Therefore, you must follow me. 
From that moment, we were lost, unless I found evasion. 

“Well, a skillful wizard supplied me with the occult and 
remarkable means of deceiving whom you will that judges 
of life and death. He gave me the instrument to imitate 
death in life !” 

“Ah, that overpowering sleep — the little, bright and 
throbbing point! I think it sears my brain again!” She 
covered her eyes. 

“Yes, that was it ! It had an irresistible and swift ef- 
fect. I presented this talisman to your sight, and, look- 
ing, you were enthralled.” 

“Oh, it was you did this — you gave me to death, and 
you let the undertakers bring me here among the dead !” 
Her lips paled and curled with loathing. 

“But you were unaware, and the process gave me, look- 
ing on, more pain than you !” 

“My pain was when I awoke here, alone. Then, you 
thus put up, as screen against the king seeing me in real- 
ity, that winding sheet — you cased me in the coffin to pre- 
vent him seeing me ?” 


1 86 Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 

“I had you immured here, until I came to release you, 
because the king sent his most trusty agent to convey you 
out of your husband’s home to the palace.” 

“His agent came to convey me to his palace while I 
slept ?” 

“That is so.” 

“The king wished to see me, eye to eye.” 

“Well, first you were to be presented to his sister.” 

“Princess Margaret?” 

“The Princess Margaret, who would be prevailed upon 
to receive you as a maid-of-honor.” 

“Honorary servant of a royal princess !” repeated the 
young wife, without pride or hurt esteem. 

“Yes, you, just a ward of the king, a stray creature 
without parentage or family mark, you were, by the stroke 
of some hired pen and a daub of wax impressed with the 
royal signet, converted into a Howard! Lord Norfolk, 
who would die a hundred deaths rather than turn his back 
to the enemy, bowed to the father of lies, and acknowl- 
edged this Catherine to be of his blood !” 

“A Howard ! Catherine Howard !” said she, dwelling 
with unction on the name, as a child on a sugar plum. “I 
am Catherine Howard?” 

“But, before that forgery, you became a Dereham ! Re- 
member that above all !” cried the earl, haughtily. “But 
Catherine, called Howard, was found dead in her bed, in 
her cottage ; her faithful nurse broke her heart on finding 
that so, and all believe that she is in her latest sleep.” 
“All?” 

“All but I !” 


Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 187 

“And the king ?” 

Dereham smiled, coldly and firmly. 

“He above all, for it was essential that he should be- 
lieve that.” 

“But a king is so often deceived in things touching him 
nearly — a king would doubt so fortuitous a bar to his pas- 
sion.” 

“He did doubt, but, what might have ruined us, has 
saved us.” 

“May I know how?” 

“While I stood there, by your tomb, waiting for your 
first sign which, at my will, I could induce, who should 
intrude where no one ventures as the night falls, but the 
king.” She stared around her, only hoping to see that 
one figure. “Mistrustful of his dearest friend ” 

“For cause !” said she, incisively. 

“Well, yes, this time, for cause! He came to that 
door !” 

She glanced up the steps, as though she expected to see 
Henry standing there. 

“Coming down those steps, he went over there, where I 
awaited, dagger in hand.” 

“Why a dagger? A dagger drawn on the king? You 
must love me, Ethelwolf, more than your liberty, your 
life, your estate, your title — more than ” 

“I love you as husband loves his wife — no more, no 
less. It is entire or worthless. The hand that touches 
an Englishman’s wife — it should be lopped off! Had I 
been a judge, and Shore, the goldsmith, been brought be- 
fore me for slaying Edward, I should have assoiled him, 


1 88 Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 

given my purse, my horse, my servingmen to fight with 
him, away into sanctuary ! As for this instance, verily, I 
maintain that if you had breathed in his watch, I should 
have made that first sign your last !” 

She liberated herself from his arms. She could stand 
alone and undaunted now — what she had heard galvan- 
ized her. 

“You would have killed your king, my lord?” 

“With the same steel that killed my lady — any one, 
rather than lose my darling! Those effigies around us 
were of men of iron, Derehams the During! But all 
helped me — you remained dead, though I had spoken the 
awakening word — your finger was an icicle over which he 
dared to draw that ring ” 

“Ring ! A ring on my hand — it is true ! An engage- 
ment ring — on the heart finger ! A royal ring ?” 

She would have pressed her lips on it, but, without 
meaning, the earl had picked up his dagger and restored 
it to its sheath. 

“Yes, your hand remained irresponsive to the touch, as 
it had to mine ! Vainly, his voice called upon you ! Noth- 
ing within you replied to his wail, lamentable, perhaps, 
beyond any that have ineffectually reverberated under this 
canopy ! His adulterous lips uselessly polluted your 
hand; it remains as pure as pale! He took away with 
him no doubt, no consolation — and little dreamed that he 
might have been carried out to Westminster with this bod- 
kin driven into his black heart !” 

“A ring of troth ! I am his bride, then?” 

“Oh, no ; mine first, then that of Death ! Look around 


Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 189 

you ! To each Dereham, his wife ! Ah, they were 
tempted, and by monarchs, too — it is in our chronicles — 
but they lie there, beside their chosen, and sealed by God’s 
wafer ! He promised your interment among the royals at 
the Abbey — but, no ; you abide with your lord !” 

She shuddered. This was a man of iron, indeed; in- 
flexible, unfeeling, incorruptible. 

“Truly, one who loves should not be parted from her 
worshiper. But you employ magicians; how do I know 
that my fondness for you is natural? May you not, when 
we regaled, have given me love-philters in my cup, vene- 
rian pastilles in my meat? Suppose your wizard had 
given me, in the rays of that indescribable star, not illu- 
sion, but actual death ?” 

“I took care of that ! He dared not deceive me, though 
an arch trickster ! True, he cheated me to favor the king 
* — but not again ! Now he is my bondman, as never he 
was to even the Satan! Such serpents do not poison 
man’s beloved twice !” 

“A poisoner? With whom are you leagued, my lord?” 
She retreated toward the doorsteps. 

“If I could not have awakened you, I should have put 
myself into the same sleep ; but, before that, the false ma- 
gician should have died gibbeted !” 

“Spite of your defense,” said she, leaning against the 
wall, “this is a direful expression in a lover ! What is it 
to live, like one survivor of an avalanche, with all gone — 
with all believing one dead ? It is a kind of banishment, 
an exile to the no man’s land of the daring sea adven- 
turers.” 


190 Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 

'‘That is where we ought to go now ! Have you not 
said, a score of times, in our sweet and short hours of 
love, that you wished to dwell in a world of our own, 
where nothing could part or trouble us, beloved? Well, 
are we not in such a world now? The door there par- 
titions us off from that cankering outer world ! But an- 
other can be opened, of which Love is the doorword ! We 
will leave home, England, Europe, at need, to the New- 
foundland, even ! I will build a new kingdom ! Thou- 
sands of conquered savages shall be your people! My 
fortune will make them contented ! You will look around 
you, an empress of the New World, and tell me, in the eve 
of our life, that it was grandly done ! ” 

“I cannot see that picture on these dark, gray walls !” 

“Meanwhile, before embarking, let us pass the time in 
a Florentine or Neapolitan palace !” 

“But, before we leave England ” 

“In your own mansion, in Dereham Old House, of 
which this is the chapel-crypt. ,, 

“Dereham ! Is this far from London ?” 

“A short ride on a good palfrey/’ 

“But it is out of the way; I should not be spied upon 
here?” 

“You might be spied upon, but you would not be seen 
in the everyday jog of things, since, though on the West- 
ern road, you should not show yourself up at the windows 
of my set of rooms.” 

“On a public road ” 

“But you would have no interest in — they no interest in 


Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 191 

you — vagrants, strollers, carriers, wayfarers, intent on 
their own affairs. You have merely to keep your rooms/’ 

“It seems to me that I shall but change one set of cheer- 
less lodgings for another!” 

“You jest, but your smile is ghastly — or that cursed, 
unearthly light gives a sickly tinge to everything here. 
Let us be out, since you know all, and the king may have 
left some idlers, curious, being courtiers !” 

“Then, go you, my lord, and see that our path out is 
unimpeded ! Let the way be clear, for I think the night 
is dark and the sky open !” 

“Leave you here — you, that were chafing to flee?” 

“An instant to recover, to arrange your cloak around 
me! After my tedium in that cottage, this is not so 
deadly lively !” 

Her laugh was very false. 

“A poor jest again !” he muttered. “But she will laugh 
merrily when we are upon our imposed voyage !” 

He went up the steps misgivingly, looking around, like 
a wild beast driven out of its refuge by starvation and 
with continual scare that the hunters were beleaguering. 

Catherine’s eyes blazed like a fire from which the fender 
had been removed. The ring — it was the proffer of a 
crown ! All seemed altered since Ethelwolf told her how 
inconceivably she had been wooed by King Henry. In 
this pit of death a sovereign had come to look again upon 
this Catherine who charmed unqualifiedly. She could not 
understand how his voice, weighty as the voice of an em- 
peror, had not aroused her. She had not heard that step, 
had not felt his hand— it was unheard of! Magic, in- 


192 Quit Not Certainty for Hope. 

deed! She could not disbelieve, for Ethelwolf had said 
it, and he could not lie, and there was the ring ! 

“His seared and scarcely healed heart is filled with love 
for me ! But what a senseless head is his, to believe that 
the world is blessed with so incomparable a flower not to 
be set in the cap of the king ! Love ! He cannot be a 
lover to believe on any evidence against his idol.” 

She was interrupted by her husband’s voice. 

“Catherine comes !” answered she, stately, and not rap- 
idly, mounting the steps. 

“All is serene ! Come out of this odious cave !” 

“Yes, but woe to you if Dereham House prove as 
odious !” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THERE IS NO TREASURE WITHOUT SEEKERS. 

Dereham Castle was castellated, for the most part, but, 
under the Tudors, the added structures were of brick and 
glittering flintstone, which had a livelier front. Then the 
windows began to be enlarged, since, when cannon were 
brought up against the walls, it mattered not whether the 
openings were loopholes or wide gaps. The clay pieces 
were molded to various forms, and, besides, they were 
carved after being baked, an art lost in later times. Here 
and there over the arches was a cabalistic sign, variously 
interpreted It looked like a Greek capital Phi, but might 
be merely two D’s joined back to back, with a handle be- 
tween them. This, then, was the brand by which the 
first Dereham, huntsman, or deer-park keeper to the king, 
marked the deer. At all events, the Derehams were so 
old that they prided themselves on their name, origin and 
house mark being lost in antiquity. 

The stained, etched and painted glass was fine; the 
ruby and the azure were inimitable. And there was a 
yellow tint on some panes which let a tinge as of perpetual 
sunshine enter the rooms. 

All the furnishings were on a scale of splendor which 
should have dazzled Catherine, and there was that air of 
happiness and peace in the outlook promising that these 
nobles had long since ceased to be hawks to their serfs and 
vultures to the passing folk. 


194 No Treasure Without Seekers. 

At the very ample casement, Dereham stood, appar- 
ently looking out. But, for once, the enchanting scene 
had no attractions. On the sideboard was a pasty of 
choice game and a mullet charmingly embedded in pars- 
ley and cooked to a turn ; but these, as well as the wine and 
ale so fine as to be “barley-wine, ” had not tempted him to 
break his fast. 

“No alarm yet,” reasoned he. “All is prepared for my 
flight to Chelmsford, where one can surely find a fisher’s 
bark to sail out of the Blackwater.” 

He was interrupted in his serious plans by Catherine, 
who had taken her morning meal in her rooms, coming in 
with the usual “Heaven save your honor!” in a sweet 
voice. 

She was glorious. None who had seen her on the bier 
could realize that this was the same being. Her color 
was rich, her sight incredibly animated, and her step was 
girlish, with its airiness. She had donned a light-colored 
robe, and her ermine slippers seemed detached from the 
oak floor, stained further with beer and soot. 

He forgot that he was going to impose his resolve upon 
her. She was so welcome, with her beauty, which re- 
freshed, though formerly it had raised misgivings. 

“Find your place on my heart!” said he, gayly, em- 
bracing her. “You seem to have slept soundly in your 
new home !” 

“Yes, a new home! I am like that Roman emperor 
who never slept twice in the same place, lest the assassins 
found him,” 


No Treasure Without Seekers. 


195 

“Well, we must join to foil the murderers of our peace ! 
I was waiting for you to come to that.” 

“Then you are unchanged ?” 

“Changeless in all ! I see you have the spirit to brave 
it out with me ! Your eyes are snapping, and your step 
vigorous !” 

“Did you not believe we might be spared leaving the 
country ?” 

“I hoped so overnight, but I see still clearly now ! We 
are not safe here, even, among my tried retainers and sure 
tenants. In 1470, when a Dereham sided with Earl War- 
wick, this castle held out against Edward, and he was ex- 
pelled; but the Tudor is not to be held at bay, when he 
could bring the wall guns from the Tower against me !” 

“You cannot imagine me queen of beauty at such a 
tourney, with my throwing down the warder to denote 
which of you should be spared and which the winner?” 

“There can be no conflict between king and earl — not in 
the equal arena. Henry comes with odds at his back !” 

“Then, we must flee and quit all !” 

“I thought this did not overcontent you, alas !” 

“What can I descry out of this loophole, over an old, 
decrepit forest, where the boles are white with age, as 
bleached skulls in that mausoleum ?” 

“A loophole — a window ten feet square, and in Dere- 
ham House, which has as many doors and windows as 
there are days in the year !” 

“I can see no novelty or distraction in a scene at which 
I have gazed ten or twelve years ! If it were in the heart 


196 No Treasure Without Seekers. 


of London, now, where one could look out on the thou- 
sand passengers, or have a peep into the palace yard !” 

“You would spy there no man who admired you more, 
cherished you more — no woman more alluring! As for 
those things, is there a palace there with the renown of 
Dereham? Do you know, my Catherine, that the pos- 
sessions of this building entitles one to the station of earl ? 
Unique distinction, perhaps, in England ! My rooms 
here are as many, as rich, and as roomy as the whole of 
Blackfriars ! But, being my rooms, you are not altogether 
safe here — if any stranger of distinction were stopped on 
the road and asked shelter, here it is, in my rooms, that he 
would find refuge ! Besides, though my household are 
true and obedient, the pages will chatter, the old women 
tattle — I am not sure that your presence is not suspected, 
maybe known !” 

“Yes, I have to hide up and stand back when you come 
home ! Up in the attic a maid may wave her neckerchief 
to Jack, the groom in your train, but I must wait until you 
arrive here, and have yourself stolen in, unattended, like 
a draper in his country place, afraid of his creditors !” 

“Ah, mine is an inexorable creditor ; he will not be long 
palled off ! He only wants one thing, but that is the one 
thing which is dearer than my life !” 

“My lord — my house ! But I have but a corner of it !” 

“The whole shall be yours — to keep pet rabbits in, if 
you like — only, when we shall have a new ruler over Eng- 
land ! When we can return from foreign parts ” 

“In foreign parts they will rebuke me for not having 


No Treasure Without Seekers. 197 

seen my own country first! What have I seen of Eng- 
land — of its capital ? What can I see from here ?” 

“Well, from the turret, if the sky is clear, you might 
see St. Paul’s spire !” 

“St. Paul’s spire ! Ah, and the Abbey ?” 

“Westminster, yes!” 

“Gardens and palaces?” 

“There is Covent Garden, which intercepts the view of 
the city gates and of the river. London Bridge might be 
discerned, if you had the magic spectacles which that 
Fleming keeps for his ‘bringing near’ of distant objects.” 

“Could we see a palace — the royal palace?” 

“You might see Windsor one way, and Whitehall the 
other — but not Greenwich; of course, the Tower stands 
the nearer !” 

“The Tower!” 

“Unsavory syllables ! The Tower, where, usually, 
King Henry’s wives meet their death !” 

“Where did his queens dwell before — before they ceased 
to please him?” 

“For one, Ann Bullen, which is in my ken, lived in 
Blackfriars.” 

“This Bullen girl was one of the nameless mob, like 
me ?” 

“Why, no; connected with the Norfolks of that day; 
she was of gentle strain — her father was a knight, and 
was worthy to be made Earl of Wiltshire because of her 
exaltation. The Rochforts furnished the roofs of gentle- 
womanship when she was made maid in attendance on old 
Queen Katharine.” 


198 No Treasure Without Seekers. 


“But she had borne no substantial rank ?” 

“She won her precedence for her sprightliness and her 
wit — oh, how few could fillip with the executioner! She 
called him, as she had heard say, ‘a good sort of a heads- 
man/ and she hoped ‘her neck, being slender, would not 
give him much trouble V ” 

“She was nameless, titleless, but she died queen ?” 

“Yes, queen of a day, and Marchioness of Pembroke 
but a little longer before !” 

“Marchioness ! Queen ! What a pleasure !” 

“Pleasures dearly paid for, as all are in due course! 
But why are you playing my ‘remembrancer’ — why this 
course of sad history?” 

“My woman told me of her — what a truly regal retinue 
she had when she went forth! What her state was in 
going from Greenwich up to London ! How she sailed 
the Thames on a barge bearing the royal arms, with a 
hundred other superb galleys around it! On them were 
officials of the royal household, with their ladies and her 
ladies! Music was played, and the vile hosts along the 
river edge shouted welcome ! When she alighted, a royal 
mantle was drawn tenderly upon her shoulders ” 

“Yes, shoulders which were received, without a head, 
in the deathman’s red cloak for the burial !” 

“She was carried, head-high, in a litter lined with white 
satin, and draped with scarlet, open on all sides, though, 
that the people might admire the beauty called to reign 
over them !” 

“Yes, she directed the pageantry; she never recked 
what weight her pride would lay upon the nation !” 


No Treasure Without Seekers. 199 

“Kennedy told me this.” 

“Did Kennedy point to her as one of the locusts, with 
glittering wings but voracious jaws, before whom acres 
melt and forests waste away ?” 

Catherine heard nothing but her own words. Her 
eyes were directed out of the large window, and she saw 
the Thames at the bridge, the galleys, the people, the 
court and soldiery. 

“Thus magnificently decked and bounteously attended, 
Ann reached the gateway, over which the royal standard 
flew, and under which the master awaited her !” 

“Yes, and from under that same palace gateway, mark 
you, she went out never to traverse it more, palled in 
black, with no jewels, no escort but the priest in black, to 
proceed to the Tower, where her sable boat shot stealthily 
under the traitor’s gate, and the marshal who waited to 
lend his hand there for her stepping ashore was Master 
Derrick, the London executioner !” 

“She met her fate — for deceiving ” 

“Her husband!” 

“Her king ” 

“That was the same thing, then! In the jousts at 
Blackheath, she had openly tossed her glove to a certain 
knight — she had turned from the bibulous monarch, her 
husband, singing ‘J°% Red Nose!’ to listen, enchanted, 
to Smeaton warbling an Italian aria !” 

“I could tell that you were a courtier by your knowl- 
edge of the rising and the setting of the ephemeral stars !” 

“It is the atmosphere around the throne — it wilts and 


200 No Treasure Without Seekers. 


blights, whereas the air of the hearth is one in which the 
domestic virtues long thrive and bloom !” 

Catherine sighed. 

“I see ; we are to light our fire of home abroad, where 
vanity and glorification are punished as crimes! You 
capped my brilliant stories with a sad ending, but I for- 
give you. My minstrel, you may kiss my hand !” 

But, though Dereham took the hand with rapture, he 
withheld his lips. He had espied the ring given in the 
charnel house, and forgotten by him. 

“Ah, is that serpent still hissing at my heels?” mut- 
tered he. 

“What is it ? Something stayed you !” She looked at 
her hand, as if it were bare. 

“Suppose,” he said, gravely, “that I asked a sacrifice of 
you, since you already grant so much in consenting to go 
from England?” 

“You have merely to name it, and we shall see if our 
affection suffices to let us do it ?” 

“That ring ! It was given to you by another than your 
husband ! Do you care to keep it ?” 

“Care? Does it not become my hand — does not the red 
enhance its whiteness ?” 

“Dearest, your hand required no ornaments superior to 
the wedding ring! Give it me, and, if you dote on 
rubies ” 

“A ring from a royal hand, first hand, too, is a rarity to 
be preserved ” 

“Or used ! For it is a talisman — with that, one could 
save a head, even under the headsman’s blade !” 


No Treasure Without Seekers. 201 

“Indeed ! I saw but its beauty, not its value ! You are 
jealous !” 

“Very deeply! The Derehams are not used to share 
their lands, their fortunes, or their treasures with — no 
matter whom ! Leave that bauble on the land which we 
shall quit only to be unannoyed when on the tumultuous 
sea. Ah, England will be gladly left behind, where I suf- 
fered more than I can express, in duty to you, from seeing 
that you are the object of another’s idolatry ! Yes, we are 
well out of the court where I should have scowled on my 
best friend if your sleeve had brushed the nape of his coat 
in your accidentally passing.” 

He threw himself at her feet, with the youthfulness of • 
ardor which grave thoughts had not totally banished. 

“I know that this is love’s folly, madness and extrava- 
gance; you understand and pity me! As long as your 
hand retains that ring, my heart will be enriched by a fiery 
band !” 

She had her hand on the jewel, as if to withdraw it and 
let him fling it out of the window to which she turned. 
In so turning, she caught a sound. 

“What is that?” 

“What is what?” 

“What — like a multitude on the not-to-well-traveled 
road !’ ? 

“Where is a troop of horse?” said he. Then, himself 
looking out, with caution, like a hunted fugitive, he 
added : “It is a cavalcade !” 

“Gorgeous !” 

“Numerous, and armed !” said he, seriously. “It is — 


202 No Treasure Without Seekers. 


I know not what — a party on the way to the northern 
forces — they pass the gateway — no ! by Heaven ! they halt, 
and they demand admission ! Who can this be ? Who 
billets his troop upon Dereham ?” 

He pressed his forehead with one hand, and pushed 
Catherine aside from the window with the other. 

“They go lightly, to be in such force ! This is the fox, 
quiet and not barking, when he seeks the lamb. Luckily, 
the shepherd has had warning !” 

In watching, he forgot about the ring. Catherine 
turned the stone within her hand. She stood on tiptoe to 
peer over his shoulder. 

In the midst of the horsemen, some alighting, was com- 
motion. Apparently, they assisted one, clumsy or inca- 
pacitated, to dismount. 

“Who are they? Who is that chief?” faltered she. 

“Henry Tudor!” said Dereham. “It is the first time 
that the King of England, alighting at Dereham, did not 
find his dutiful cousin there to hold his stirrup. It is true 
that never before did a King of England come to Dere- 
ham to carry the Lady of Dereham off on his saddle- 
bow !” 

“What do you say?” asked Catherine, who saw and 
guessed, but dared not believe. “It is the king — there 
■ — the flower of English chivalary, and you linger here !” 

“Back !” said the earl, in a voice never used to her, and 
which made her renounce her movement to go to the door. 
There was no disobeying that order, and no braving that 
frowning brow. 

“Would you resist your lord?” she questioned. 


No Treasure Without Seekers. 203 

“Like for like!” said he, sullenly. “He would not be 
the first monarch who was put to death by his earl !” 

“Fie ! Better anything than murder !” gasped she, 
stifling. 

“No! Better murder before shame on the house of 


Dereham !” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

WHAT CAN COUNTERBALANCE LOVE? 

There was a pause. 

“Come !” said Dereham, in a harsh voice, as he dragged 
his wife across the room. “You must instantly flee into 
your room, and make ready for our journey! I pray 
thee !” For he felt that he had been rough. “Keep there 
when equipped, until I come in person for you! We 
must, perchance, descend by the window ! Guard my 
treasure, wife ! yourself, from all eyes !” 

There was a trumpet blast at the gates and a clash of 
arms. The watch was saluting the distinguished arrival. 

“Do you hear? They will not hesitate to open to the 
lord of all! The time is gone when the warder would 
have held out till his own lord bade the gates be opened ; 
the portcullis lifted, and the bridge lowered ! He is cross- 
ing the courtyard by this time. He is approaching this 
wing. He comes for — me or you ! Oh, that the barons 
ever left to the king the privilege of entering everywhere, 
and being at home! Jack in his cot is in his castle, but 
Jack’s lord has not an inviolable home! But you peril- 
ously linger !” He pushed her out of the room doorway, 
and closed all after her, with the fierceness of a miser 
locking his chest. 

“Yes, he comes here!” For he heard the well-known 
heavy step on the stairs. 


What Can Counterbalance Love? 205 


He drew the curtains over the inner door, and turned 
round in an attitude of protection. He was wondering 
what caused this repetition of visits. It was like the vase 
coming too often to the well-curb and being shattered 
against it. Had Fleming revealed all? In that case, a 
royal captain would come with the order to arrest him ! 
If there were a death decree to be brought, a Dereham 
should have the lord keeper read it ! 

In the midst of his quandary, pages opened the door, 
and, awed by the potentate, Dereham’s steward faltered : 

“His grace, the king’s most excellent majesty!” 

As the visitor was thus formally announced, the earl’s 
trepidation calmed. Scarcely would there be evil now — 
perhaps not suspicion. Henry was more often brutal 
than cunning. It was a poor kind of hope, but hope is 
hope, though qualified. 

Ethelwolf drew himself proudly up, and bowed courte- 
ously to him who surged in like a galleon, puffing a little 
with having somewhat hurriedly mounted unaccustomed 
stairs. Dereham House had been built when the ground 
floor was but a vestibule — the real habitation was on the 
next floor, which, entered only by its large staircase, could 
be defended against an army. 

“Good cheer, my lord!” cried Henry, so jovially that 
all dread had to vanish incontinently. 

“Your grace within Dereham gates — what honor! Be 
my greeting as warm as my surprise is great!” 

The king smiled broadly, saying, with the genial tone 
which made him friends when he chose : 


20 6 What Can Counterbalance Love? 


“I am led to seek your lordship, since you no longer 
come to my house!” 

“Had there been an order, I should straightway have 
sped !” 

“Orders to my crony? I know all that, but pressing 
and secret matters have arisen, as a crag suddenly looms 
out of the mountain mist and shows where the precipice 
was yawning. There are so many ears in the palace that 
I determined to utter my words only within trusty walls. 
Dereham is sure !” 

“I can answer for every man bred and born on my 
estate !” 

At this very instant, the tapestry behind him slightly 
undulated ; neither saw the vague movement, but had the 
younger man done so, he would have believed that Cather- 
ine had ventured out to listen, if not to peep. 

“Yes, there would be no eavesdroppers where the mas- 
ter, though young, is venerated.” 

Without bowing to the eulogy, the earl moved a chair 
forward, and begged Henry to be seated. 

“I accept the honor ! Oh, the hospitability of Dereham 
is fabled! To all comers, a horn of ale, and a cut of 
bread!” 

“And neither of the thinnest !” added the young noble, 
trying to laugh as heartily as his guest, so relieved was he. 

Henry was the bucksome guest, as the common people 
figured him. 

“May I learn,” said the host, though regretting to damp 
this pleasantness, “how our grace has borne the sorrow 
with which my own eyes saw you cruelly distressed ?” 


What Can Counterbalance Love ? 207 

“Royal state has regal cares! The king has nothing 
of his own — omnia mecum porto — you are a scholar, you 
know — T carry all my own about me!’ It is true, the 
wound is aching here, green and bleeding, but desolated 
England shows her gashes, open and running, too, and 
I should think of her before myself.” 

“What has struck us sorely, lord?” 

“The Sinclairs and the Maxwells, and all who bite 

t 

biscuit instead of champing beef, are thrashing English 
territory with fifteen thousand claymores, of which we 
saw some samples in our palace, and those awkward chop- 
pers of the mincemeat for Christmas face, called Jedburgh 
cleavers and Lochaber axes. All the west marches re- 
semble the burning cities of the Holy Writ, and to 
quench the flames and stay the torch-bearers stand but 
Dacre and Musgrave, with four or five hundred knights 
and their followers, with a few men-at-arms ! The free- 
archers have patriotically left the forests and joined the 
army on condition that their poachery shall be forgiven 
them ! Hang the deer that they have hung up in the 
shamble-oaks ! But all these Robin Hoods do not make 
an army !” 

“Good !” said Dereham, rejoiced that this envoy came 
on war and not about his love. 

“Good?” 

“Good ! that the wastrels should show this love for the 
country! Like them, all England will rise! We are all 
ready to march upon the common foe !” 

“We shall not leave England!” murmured Catherine, 
listening behind the hangings. 


2 o 8 What Can Counterbalance Love? 


“I know that, and it would be my pride again to lead 
them !” returned the king. 

“It is your glorious place!” 

“But a war with Scotland — a war of extermination 
with those tough forayers who are like the bullhides they 
wrap around them — it will not be a few days’ excursion !” 

“Children will be born to the fathers in the front, and 
‘they who return will see a son as tall as the long bow !” 
said the earl. 

“That is it! During my absence, London, bereft of 
her ruler, will fall prey to the intrigues of the Emperor 
Charles and Pope Paul. When the butcher’s dog goes 
away from the tray of meat to fight another dog, the curs 
plunder the trough ! My severity against the stubborn 
upholders of the worn-out tenets and gaudy ceremonies 
will bear sour fruit, and I am certain it will be the high 
churchmen who will foment dissension. I cannot quit 
London, then !” 

Dereham clinched his hands, and set his teeth in vexa- 
tion. 

“Unless I leave my power in true and lusty hands !” 

There was a pause, but as the king spoke not, the other 
named several worthies, concluding with Norfolk’s name. 

“A man of strike-as-they-come-up ! who has so many 
captured banners in his chapel that his lady would edge 
her beds with them ! I do not wish a light head, but I do 
not wish heavy hands, either.” 

“Cranmer would admirably manage all the clerical 
work !” 

“At the bottom of his heart, he wishes that nothing 


What Can Counterbalance Love ? 209 

had been disturbed, provided that he, as now, had the 
basket of the loaves and the fishes. All he saw in the 
Reformation was that it would not reform the primacy !” 

“If young Sussex were backed by an older head ” 

“Sussex, gallant, foppish, poetic! He might be useful 
in the battle’s van, wanting not a spark of courage, if we 
won battles by bidding a Taillefer strut up and down 
before the foe, singing war lays ! But Sussex would be 
one of those lawgivers who waste parchment in wordy 
decrees ! We should have swords just an ell long, and 
so many plumes to a steel casque! No, no, lord of my 
choice, we need a man with brain and body, young enough 
not to want to be carried in a litter when he has his 
migrains and cramp in the knee ! My regent must be 
one who loves me and my race, and England ! You must 
know the one man comprising the wanted qualities !” 

He laid his gross hand on the earl’s shoulder, which 
rather hunched up than yielded to the weight. 

“I seek without stumbling on the mark !” said Dereham, 
after considering. 

“You are full modest or very blind — with love, is it?” 

“What, is it at Dereham that you would fly *your fal- 
con?” 

“What a time to crack this thin-shell nut !” and Henry 
laughed boisterously. “You are the man who would, 
like the Roman rider, leap into the crease! Loved by 
your people, loved by the court, save by those who hate 
all that intercept their sunshine ! Feared by the small- 
souled and pilfering, admired by the women, and fostered 
by the sages, I say, in handing you the staff of rule, as 


2io What Can Counterbalance Love? 


the grand Alexander said to his generals : To the worthi- 
est!’ Yes, all will see you take my place without envy! 
Besides,” went on the monarch, using a sweet voice, 
almost paternal, “I have another post for your enhance- 
ment which will hush murmuring in the most invidious 
mouth.” 

Dereham waited, in trepidation. 

“For this year, I have been considering a greater boon 
than any under which you manfully carry yourself.” 

“Is there anything more onerous than to be your lieu- 
tenant, viceroy of England?” 

“Something more enjoyable, at any rate! Well do I 
know that your lips, your eyes, your demeanor — nothing 
has revealed the secret of your loving! But you should 
be frank with one who has never so unbosomed himself 
to mortal as Harry to Ethelwolf ! My lord, you are in 
love !” 

“If I had thought that written on my sleeve, I should 
have burned the whole garment !” 

“Yes, you love, and you love one dear to me! my 
sister !” 

“Oh, the Princess Margaret,” said Dercham, with a re- 
lief, which was but a fresh anxiety. 

“I have questioned her for you — you are a chest of oak 
garnished with iron — the lock triply snapped, and the key 
lost! I questioned my sister, and Madge acknowledged 
that she loved this man !” 

He patted the earl on the back, as a schoolmaster his 
favorite pupil when he is to go upon the stage and recite 
the valedictory. 


What Can Counterbalance Love ? 211 


Dereham did not see the hand held out fraternally to 
him. Something like the wraith of Catherine swept be- 
tween them. 

“For once, affection and policy concord ! Thus will you 
be happy, Ethelwolf, and that will insure my tranquillity ! 
By leaving more than a friend, a veritable brother as my 
regent, I can march forward so freely and easily ! I shall 
not feel my helmet more than a cap ! So let the bolt of 
war strike me, if it is fated, though the Fleming says 
that I am to die in my bed ! I shall pass away blessing 
God that He gave a true, fit ruler to my realm, for, alas ! 
they have pronounced the births tainted of the Princesses 
Mary and Elizabeth illegal ! and Prince Edward’s health 
is tottering ! Brother,” went on he, embracing the stupe- 
fied earl with the knightly clasp, “I shall leave with you 
a warrant for your high office, of which the keeper has 
the duplicate.” 

“This is too generous a bounty to me,” stammered 
Dereham, not so much joyously as intractably, “unworthy 
man that I am !” 

“How unworthy?” repeated the other, turning from 
going away in glad relief. 

“Truly so, since I cannot accept any portion of the 
boons of your majesty!” 

Henry fastened his eyes on him, wistfully, as if he saw 
the man turning to stone in his presence, or falling with 
madness. 

The noble knew how senseless and ungrateful must 
appear his conduct, but he could not do otherwise. 

“I cannot do this thing !” 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE BREACH THAT LOVE CUTS, WHAT CAN FILL? 

For a period, the two men looked studiously at each 
other. Dereham had everything to conceal, Henry every- 
thing to discover — to account for this parting of the two 
friends. 

Then, in a tone of menace to make most hearers 
dwindle under, the sovereign said : 

“I think you will turn and turn again this proposition 
in your mind !” 

“My course is taken,” replied the earl, before the last 
word was spoken. 

“Do you refuse the regency?” 

“I am over-thankful for the prodigious honor, honor 
even to a Dereham, but I cannot accept it.” 

“And you refuse the royal alliance, after the royal 
favor ?” 

“I know how little I ought to have expected an offer 
of that degree, but I am just to myself in again saying 
that I am not worthy of that hand !” 

The king walked by him two or three times, then, halt- 
ing suddenly and staring at him with a kind of wonder 
deeper than his rising exasperation, he said : 

“Do you consider that behind the friend is the mon- 
arch? After the request — request,. look you! — may come 
the command!” 


The Breach that Love Cuts. 


213 


Without Catherine at his back, literally, Dereham, for 
all his self-opinion, might have used a bold and intolerant 
tone, but, as it was, he spoke mildly. 

“Sire, in the name of all that you prize as dear, have 
leniency upon me. Save me from my own fate! Your 
desire made me an ingrate — your order would make 


He looked around so lordly upon his castle, his domains, 
his woods, and his tenants’ cottages, that Henry under- 
stood, though the signification was almost impossible. 
Still, he doubted such a reversal of allegiance. 

“I am wistful to know plumply ” 

“Your order would make me a rebel !” 

“Ha! not by the sacred wounds!” began the Tudor, 
closing his fist, as Ethel wolf, in spite of his blunt answer, 
offered to take his hand tenderly and submissively. 

“I supplicate your grace!” 

“Back ! No supplication unless the rebel is struck 
down !” 

Hot as the other now, Dereham carried his hand, re- 
jected, to his swordhilt. 

“Baron of England in mine own house, I say to the 
chief baron ” 

“Ha! T spy the wolf!’ No more shall you pull the 
pelt over my eyes! Am I by this one to judge all? Be- 
ware, cousin ! You have grasped your sword-handle in 
the presence! And in that presence, it is writ, and ye 
barons have attested it : ‘you are not to wear, handle, or 
use any weapon, when not guarding his majesty, upon 
pain of death !’ ” 


214 The Breach that Love Cuts. 

Dereham still grasped his sword, and with defiant eyes 
and steady voice, replied: 

'‘Forbidden swords leave teeth and nails !” 

The Tudor receded one step, but instantly took it for- 
ward again. He had for a spell believed that this was the 
leader of a long-dreaded outbreak. After all, this one 
man, whom he had believed to love him, resisted him, 
weapon almost drawn. They dreaded him, but they did 
not love, though he deluged them with favors. 

“Chief of my trusted ones, are you — you turned arch- 
traitor?” 

There was such sorrow in the tone that the earl melted. 
It was nothing that the king had yet done that deserved 
this falling off : the woman was to blame ! Ethel wolf, 
looking with his mind’s eye through the wall, where he 
believed Catherine to be, moved his lips, become pale, in 
prayer. What was he to do? 

“Lord Dereham, we have seen fortunes glow more 
brightly than even yours in the luster offshed from our 
crown, but we blew on it, not to aggravate the effulgence, 
but to extinguish it, and that star went into the blankness 
of nonentity!” 

“I am young, but I have seen this thing !” muttered the 
culprit, but edging in between the other and the inner 
door. 

“You are Earl of Dereham, chief ranger of Greenwich 
Park, master of the falcons, holding a seat at the council, 
never more than three places from the chair of state; if 
the king visiting you cannot drink the fill of your ancient 
Hirlas, or cup of tenure, he must fill it with new, full- 


The Breach that Love Cuts. 


215 


weight gold pieces, and — suffice it, I can rend and rip all 
this from you so that you will be naked and poor as the 
patriarch saint of poverty!” 

“You can do such things, under God !” 

“I can have you lugged by the cheeks into the house 
of peers, where your dignities will be struck off you, for 
you handled your sword in the king’s teeth !” 

“I shall not deny that my sword, in a mad spell, might 
have been the royal tooth-peck !” returned Dereham, sur- 
lily. 

“And when the death doom is spoken, I can point out 
to you the way dolorous, which was traveled by Dudley, 
Norris, Thomas Cromwell ” 

“Goodly company ! I shall travel the road, and mount 
the martyr’s throne at the end as firmly as my fathers 
clambered up into a death-lined gap in the castle wall !” 

“This is overmuch insolence, lord of mine, and it is 
to be seen which of us is the more yielding — you or I !” 
He was proceeding, with his formidable tread to the door, 
when the earl darted in between, but his hand no longer 
on his sword. Tudor stopped, astonished that he should 
be stayed. 

“Yes, I stay you !” replied the noble to the look. “For 
I still am master of Dereham! The castle where your 
grace abides is ever the mass of stones piled around my 
rooftree ! No judgment of the chamber of my equals has 
yet impugned me as traitor. So am I still baron of 
England, your subject while you are in your right, and 
not fettering mine! As such, it is my right to conduct 
your highness to my gates, and to offer you my hand to 


2 i 6 The Breach that Love Cuts. 


place you in the stirrup, and my greeting as you ride 
hence !” 

The king’s surprise gave way to the strong feeling of 
obedience to etiquette characterizing the ruler and the 
ruling classes. He felt less the humiliation of being shown 
the door, since this was a lineal son of those who con- 
strained a king to bow and consent to the barons of 
England only a few miles away, at Runnymede — he might 
almost see it from that window whereby he was bearded. 

“You may lead on, my lord,” he coldly said, “but we 
leave here our royal gage” — he flung his glove on the seat 
where Catherine had last rested — “that this is the last 
time you will enjoy the honor!” 

To the amazed gaze of the hiding woman, breathless, 
spellbound, the two men left the room with such control 
that she might — had she seen and heard nothing to the 
contrary — have believed it was punctilious host and guest 
passing an ordinary farewell. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


BITTER TO BEAR, MAY BE SWEET TO REMEMBER. 

When the door had closed after the king and his re- 
bellious subject, Catherine came out slowly from her 
ambush. 

“How grand he was !” said she, going to the window, 
but hiding behind the curtain folds. “That is the king! 
That is the one who loves me so much that he left the 
warm, and perfumed, and well-peopled palace to go and 
see me among the dead in the foul and dark mortuary 
chapel. He, for whom the princesses of Europe are pin- 
ing, came and put upon my finger the engagement ring 
as eagerly as he would put a crown upon my head. Still, 
Dereham bore himself boldly — but amid even many such 
perverse gallants, is he not the most brave to head them 
all ? There is a monarch to whom must be a whole island, 
not to pen him up ! And even in England he cannot 
stride at his ease — he must have the mountains of Scot- 
land over which to hunt the stag ! How .puny and faded 
are the earls and dukes, which revolve around him, the 
sun of all Christendom !” 

She looked down; the suite were resuming their sta- 
tions about the king, permitting Dereham to do the regu- 
lar honors as if nothing adverse had occurred between 
them. 

Catherine observed, with interest, the bowing of the 


2 1 8 


Sweet to Remember. 


bared heads, the smiling, the offered hands, while the 
royal head was borne high and unbent. A twinge of pain 
struck through her as Ethelwolf bent his knee and put 
out his hand to place the unwieldy foot in the large stir- 
rup. She wondered that her noble mate should suffer 
that degradation. 

“Ah, if with that one stroke of the sword he shrank 
from drawing he had made himself king!” she thought. 

The gates were wide open, the bridge down, the spiked 
grating strongly chained up — but had the chains, the 
bridge and the loyalty of the servants been less firm — 
Henry the Eighth might have been crushed at the feet of 
fhe master of Dereham. 

That hope — if Catherine or her husband entertained 
it — was lost, for nothing impeded the exit of the king and 
his cortege. The party threw up the dust on the road, 
so as to half obscure them, and all rode away. 

“To the gates of the magic city !” thought she, “where 
the palace will open to him as to the hero who blows the 
enchanted horn at the wicket! Oh, king, king! Pursue 
your course; rise upon the groveling train — the more 
lowly you trample them, the loftier you will stand on the 
mass ! And she will stand the higher over all heads who 
is held by your side ! Ah, were I not bound to my clog!” 

Ethelwolf returned to her, very white, and extremely 
agitated. The gates were closed against that terrible in- 
terrupter, but those gates could be soon battered down; 
the moat filled with the faithful dead if his henchmen 
should be rebellious to that pitch. He had no need to call 
his wife, who stood, but with some apprehension, in the 


Sweet to Remember. 219 

mid-room. He beckoned her away from the window, 
where now she could see no more of the cavalcade. 

“I want you to listen to me !” He did not notice that 
she had made no change in her dress for the contemplated 
journey. He went to a press in the wall, and, letting 
down a flapboard, drew out writing materials. He sat at 
this improvised desk. 

She looked puzzled at what he was doing. His will? 
An order which concerned her? 

“ Where were you all the time our visitor was here?” 
asked he, without looking up. 

“I — I was here.” 

“Behind the arras? Hem! Then you saw and over- 
heard?” 

“Everything!” afraid rather than impudent about tell- 
ing the truth. 

“You know, then, that my estate is confiscated?” 

“Yes.” 

“My olden castle will probably be leveled and the stones 
pave the way from the sowshed to the farmhouse !” 

“Yes.” 

“My life is leveled at!” 

“You all but leveled your sword at the king’s life — but 
the king may relent.” 

“Who relent? Harry of England?” He bitterly 
laughed. He put down the pen, and rose. “Do you 
know for whom I am losing all this ?” 

“I know that you would not only lose nothing of all 
this, but gain the double, if you could marry the king’s 
sister.” 


220 


Sweet to Remember. 


“Do you knoyy who it is?” 

“As well as you!” But her smile denoted that she 
knew herself better. 

“Then the hour has struck, as I expected.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“That there is no escape, but by the means I used to 
protect you.” 

“Yes; up to this you have protected me.” 

“By the magic imp imprisoned in yellow crystal, which 
I owed to Master Fleming, you were insidiously led into 
a profound trance!” 

“I shall not forget it — to be deprived of command of 
self — how shameful !” 

“It is my turn now. It is for me to join my fathers, 
as the saying is.” 

“Must you die to escape the king ? Why not flee, since 
that course was good for us ?” 

“That course was good while I had some station — 
some means, some freedom from the immense weight 
upon him whom all the ban of the kingdom will stigma- 
tize. I could shield you, then — but now I am, as the king 
said — in your hearing, too — naked as I came into the 
world!” 

“If you appeal to the peers — to the princess !” 

“Would you ask her for your husband’s life ?” 

Catherine hung her head — she forefelt that she could 
not speak in the royal princess’ presence, she a mock 
Howard only! To a Tudor! 

“No ; I have the feat accomplished before me : I shall 
seem to die, and so escape too real a death !” 


Sweet to Remember. 


221 


He showed her that he had the case containing the 
talisman of Fleming’s provision. 

“That fatal glass! Take it away! It is a demon im- 
prisoned there, but exercising its sway! Away! Break 
it ! Hurl it from the window ! Let it take wing !” 

“On the contrary, I treasured it. Hear me out, for 
there is no time to lose ! Other kings have had harbingers 
whose feet made music on the road as they brought gifts 
to good subjects ! This tyrant has fleet-winged messen- 
gers who bear messages of death and robbery ! My mo- 
ments are numbered, and yet I have many things to tell.” 

“Yes, I am your wife, your confidante.” 

“So much so that I let you assist me in this ghastly 
but droll burlesque! The masque of death! A phase 
which Holbein omitted! Death shields a loyal servitor 
and a true husband from the Tarquin who covets his wife ! 
That scroll !” He pointed to the fresh writing on the 
desk. “It must be found by my side. It indicates that in 
my dread of the royal choler I made away with myself. 
My last prayer is that the king will let my property go 
to one Catherine Howard, cousin of the Duke of Nor- 
folk ” 

“I am your heiress? I, to all this?” 

“Do not rejoice too soon. What passes through the 
lion’s claws will be pretty ragged and sucked of juice!” 

“But, self-murder ! You will be denied the holy rites !” 

Ethelwolf laughed long and heartily. 

“LTnder the excommunicated monarch, we laugh at the 
old formulas. No, an Earl of Dereham is not to be treated 
like a delinquent turned out of his cottage and slaying 


222 


Sweet to Remember. 


himself — no hedge-stake will be driven through my heart 
— constant to thee !” 

“Can you laugh still ?” 

“My very skull would grin at this jest on Henry! 
Wait, though; let us see who laughs last. All depends 
now upon you!” 

“Upon me?” 

“Upon you!” 

“Nay, for it is you who will send yourself asleep by 
looking on that hateful ball ! It is you who will be able to 
wake yourself at your will, then.” 

“That is true, so far — what is your inference?” 

“That before they seize all your treasure, let me have 
some. I will take a maid or a manservant, and upon 
the route you traced for your flight ” 

“You would flee? No; that was good when I could be 
your rear guard and follow, and join you in safety. But 
now, I am a dead man, and I must follow the route of 
the dead of Dereham. They will find me dead ; they will 
pray over me as dead, and they will carry me beside my 
sires as the dead. You, alone, will know the secret.” 

“I, alone?” 

“For when I waken myself, as I hope to Heaven, with 
whom I trifle against my will, but to make you happy yet ! 
Then I want some trusty hand to open the door of the 
charnel house to me, as I opened it to you !” 

“Ah !” 

“Yes, you, and none other, will know what a mockery 


Sweet to Remember. 223 

it was to pray over the very young and hale man whose 
taking-off seemed so harsh.” 

“The door which I am to open ” 

“It has two keys ” 

“Why, two keys ” 

“One belongs to the door, the other to the master of 
Dereham; when the crypt is closed, the key is placed in 
the family muniment room, and the fellow is left with the 
sexton. Now, the one in the castle belongs to the 
heir ” 

“Your heir ? Your heiress — I, you mean !” 

“No; I mean my heir, which, I being a manifest rebel, 
is the king!” 

“Certainly, the king should inherit that key — but the 
other, the sexton’s ” 

“Oh, you will have that, for I think you will use it 
before the king will use his — to let me out !” 

“No !” She shudderingly repelled the instrument. 
“Keep it in your bosom so as to handle it when you 
awaken yourself.” 

“Catherine, in death’s presence, truth alone reigns. 
Should I then see all things clearly, should I not care to 
awake !” 

“What man loved by woman cares not to live?” said 
she. 

“What man doubting woman cares to live?” was his 
sudden reply. 

She started, indignantly, but on following the direction 


224 


Sweet to Remember. 


of his glance, she blushed. He had noticed the royal 
signet upon her hand. 

She had turned the ruby inward, but the broad gold 
band attracted his head. 

“May not the man doubt who sees the woman — his wife 
— wearing the love token of another ?” 

“You shall have it — but, in your turn, throw away that 
devil’s token — then, we will try to escape together !” 

“Too late !” But he took the ring from her and put it 
on his own little finger, smiling. “I love you without 
alloy now ! I am wholly happy ! Say, for the last time, 
that you love me, who dies in pretense for you, but would 
die in reality if needs must.” 

“I do not know what to say,” muttered she. 

“Say nothing — use your lips for better purpose!” He 
kissed her; then placing the open box before him on a 
little table by his couch, he riveted his eyes to the utter 
exclusion of her, on the speck in the amber shell, which 
ever and ever pulsated like something eternal as light. 

“Farewell!” said he, she thought; he spoke so low. 

She watched, partly fascinated again ; the charm over- 
powered him, though not so speedily as it had her ; the 
light in his eyes faded — his senses seemed to float away. 

“No!” cried she, starting up. “I will not connive at this 
deviltry !” She seized the crystal in its box, and hurried 
to the window. “Away ! But, you” — she returned to the 
couch — “you come back!” 

But Ethelwolf was in the catalepsy. His eyes, open, 
stared at some point present in his mental sight. His 


Sweet to Remember. 225 

limbs began to set, though supple; he lost color percep- 
tibly. She was terrified. 

'‘But it must not be death,” said she, “because I came 
near to wishing that ! And that would be a crime ! He 
sleeps — yes, it is just sleep, but — if he wake not of his 
will, who will awaken him? ,, 


CHAPTER XVII. 


LUCKILY THERE WERE TWO KEYS. 

When the king returned to London, he had ridden at a 
great pace. It would seem as if he were riding away 
from a painful phantom which did not renounce the chase 
until at Westminster. 

He retired, too, into his private rooms, where none but 
the Princess Margaret, fortified by her own distress, ven- 
tured to approach him. She found her brother in his 
cloudiest mood, with his face shaded by his hands, like 
the brooding knight of Michael Angelo on the Medicean 
tomb. She went up to him, knelt down, and as he noticed 
nothing of the intrusion, laid her fair head on his knee. 

She had wept a while in silence, repressing her sobs, 
when he became conscious that the prohibition for visitors 
had been evaded or broken through. 

“It is Madge !” said he, hoarsely. 

“Oh, my lord ! Oh, my brother !” moaned she ; “let me 
weep here, for it is not seemly for a royal princess to 
be seen to have tears of the same brine as mortal woman. 
You alone may know why I weep. I loved him so dearly, 
and since so long agone!” 

“You must have cheer, Madge!” 

“When you were in despair, a while ago, mourning, I 
think as deeply as I myself now, did I bid you be of 
cheer? No; for I know that to a man and a king is 


Luckily there Were Two Keys. 227 

denied the solace which a woman may find in weeping. 
No, I say to you, neither be of cheer nor weep! Bear 
with patience!” 

“Well, you saw how I repressed the grief so that none 
could say that I, the king, was racked by the common, 
remediless woe of man !” 

“Ah, but that was not your first loss — not your first 
love !” 

She spoke innocently, but he sprang up and went away, 
standing still a while before he returned to her. 

“And you had not carried it two years in your bosom, 
as a slave guards the diamond which, if he can procure 
his escape, will make him happy in a far-off land ! More- 
over, you are a man and a monarch. A woman is pressed 
very small between politics and ambition. I could dwell 
only upon love if kept all to myself — unknown to all else. 
I am one as eager to go down the throne steps as an- 
other to mount them. What scorching, scathing wind is 
this which comes up in the night and strikes down the 
young and deserving? Have there not been sacrifices 
enough offered to Moloch, for death to be weary of arm 
in clutching for more?” 

The king resented this allusion to the blood staining his 
reign. But he did so in his own biased manner. 

“Why, Margaret, I swear to you that none of these 
dooms affect my conscience; no specters dare come and 
pluck the pillow from under my head ! Are they who did 
not make me draw back the breadth of my sole when in 
their lusty brawn to make me turn and shrink in their 
dry bones? Do you reproach me, as none did who had 


228 Luckily there Were Two Keys. 

been sharers in their spoil, for the punishment of Dudley 
and Empson, who plundered all treasuries, and who were 
lashed by reason of sentences, their due, in my father’s 
time? Do you blame me for punishing that purse-proud 
Wolsey, puffed up with a breath from Rome, who was 
the first to wear golden slippers, as if his feet were too 
holy to tread England’s soil? Prevaricating, debauched, 
whose robe was dyed cardinal color with blood like the 
cardinal sins. Why, I would have liberated Fisher, though 
a state offender, and a traitor of the deepest dye, because 
he was eloquently pleaded for, but the Pontiff Paul sent 
him the red hat in his prison to taunt me into sending 
him the head for it to be fitted on, at Rome. Do you 
cast up Cromwell’s death? who climbed too high so as 
to be giddy, and whose first step was on his predecessor’s 
head ! The tears of orphans and widows threatened to 
wash away the throne, if not diverted to drown him ! 
Do I war with the weak and harmless, with women? 
Only for that part, with woman! Did you say, Ann 
Bullen ?” 

The princess said not a word. 

“Did I send her tempters? Did she not gather them 
around her as the wild fowler bribes the poor fledglings 
to flock to his net, with pipings of love? I neither ac- 
cused her nor tried her, nor yet did I condemn her ! The 
law lords found her ^guilty — unworthy of the station to 
which I raised her, and they sent her to the ax and the 
block!” 

Then, looking around slyly, he continued, with a mali- 
cious grin : 


Luckily there Were Two Keys. 229 

“They will say that my signature was on the sentence ! 
Let them say — and lie ! That time I had the gout in my 
hand — to write was torture ! They had a seal cut with my 
hand-manual on it, and with this daubed in the ink they 
stamped the scroll — but that is not my writing!” 

This low cunning made her renew her weeping. 

“No, no, sister mine,” resumed he, rising, and walking 
energetically about; “there may be spots on my scepter, 
and spots on my throne, but they come from the lumber- 
ing blows of fate, not strokes of Heaven.” 

“Oh, Henry,” said she, still kneeling, “your loss this 
time is greater than any one’s. Perhaps, he, too, was one 
of the flatterers about your seat, but he loved his lord.” 

“I believe you ; he loved me well — and I know not 
whom more !” added he, enigmatically to her, and sus- 
piciously. 

“Such a supporter gone, the throne topples to one side.” 

“I scarcely grant that.” 

“He was the noblest of the noble, the boldest among the 
brave !” 

“Yes, many knew that who did not live to tell it. I 
think I see him as he leaped in full body-armor, from 
the three-banked galley, Grace de Dieu, and boarded the 
French galliot, in Honfleur roads ! Ah, to souse the crew 
in the great pickle-pot ! Who gainsays he was brave, this 
Dereham ?” 

“And yet he, so valuable ” 

“Well, he threatened me! No man can live who 
threatens me !” 

“Then,” returned Margaret, slowly, as she rose and 


230 Luckily there Were Two Keys. 

modulated her voice to be sweet still, but even, “you must 
have cornered him ! irritated him ! You can be exasper- 
ating as if you used aqua fortis ! You know you are 
overbearing ! You must have driven him to the wall — for 
he was cited for his forbearance, his courtesy, his loy- 
alty!” 

“Who lent you the voice which said these things in my 
bosom? Into the river I would pitch my crown, my 
scepter, and my gold, leaving me only my sword, for with 
that I might recover what was lost — if he had not 
flouted me!” 

“Well-a-day ! You threatened him with the loss of all ! 
So he anticipated his warrant ! He was not to be the first 
of the Derehams who should die on the scaffold ! He 
slew himself! He has left you all now! Hark! They 
come to transfer his useless dross to his master, who is 
God’s steward for the kingdom !” 

She dried her eyes, for there was a stir in the palace, 
solemn, measured, dreary. 

It was the peers, who had sent a delegation to attend 
the Dereham obsequies and who came now in a body to 
witness that Sussex with the deputation should report to 
the king the fulfillment of their mission. Sussex himself 
bore on a black silk cushion the coronet, the ring of the 
castle keys, and other insignia now useless, since there 
was no longer an Earl of Dereham. 

Henry made a sign for the princess to go to her own 
rooms. She begged to be allowed to stay — to hear his 
eulogy. It was clear that she had herself in hold; she 
would be calm so that none would suspect how deeply she 


Luckily there Were Two Keys. 231 

grieved. She waved her hand gratefully to Sussex and 
those who had said, “God rest you !” to their brother, and 
closed the door on him, where, alone, the king’s ire might 
not wreak itself. 

The young noble knelt to the monarch, while the pages 
presented the relics of his friend to the king. 

“Sire,” said he, in that touching voice, for which per- 
haps the elders had chosen him to be their spokesman, 
“we were unable to deposit in its proper resting-place 
the mortal coil of Ethelwolf, Earl of Dereham. This last 
and noblest of a race always first in our annals as the 
noblest, is forbidden to rest where his fathers built and 
defended their possessions. The Bishop of London claims 
that his See is independent of the primate See, and that, 
at the earl committed suicide, he shall not receive the final 
rites of the Reformed Church.” 

Henry frowned, but there was so much strength to the 
flame of religious dissensions that he forbore using this 
new clash for either side. 

Sussex went on, hurriedly, because he was warned that 
this was a moot point. 

“So we placed the corpse in the ruins of the Priory, 
hard by, a sort of no-man’s ground, since the monks were 
sent out during the suppression of the monastic estab- 
lishments. The place is habitable only to bats and obscene 
birds, but it had doors, and we locked them. That is the 
key of his vault, so that, in due time, when this conflict 
of episcopal jurisdictions is laid, your highness may have 
the earl placed beside his father and mother !” 

Henry looked calm, but there was a hot spot on his 


232 Luckily there Were Two Keys. 

cheek bone boding no good. Truly, he meant ill to Dere- 
ham in the body, but he did not wish to pursue the soul. 

“I deliver all,” concluded the young peer ; “y° ur high- 
ness is heir to the heirless!” 

“Good ! Well said !” was the muttered comment. 

“I thank you, Earl of Sussex !” 

But when all were glad that the young and usually im- 
pulsive earl had delivered his message, without remarks 
which might spoil all, he, being a headstrong youth, would 
speak again. 

“I have but to say,” concluded he, “that if his death 
came from his offending Heaven, I would I could replace 
him in expiation ! And if he offended man with any 
crime which would have visited him with death like that 
he inflicted on himself, then, like the ancient, I am ready 
to say, ‘Not he, but I did it !’ ” 

Surely the king had loved Dereham — he did not take 
up this challenge; he had not liked the speaker, but he 
excused him for the dead one’s sake. 

He watched the guards put the keys and other para- 
phernalia on a sideboard. 

“It is an irreparable loss,” said he ; “to you a brother, a 
comrade — to me, a friend !” 

He spoke with feeling, and all sincerely compassionated, 
as they bowed. 

“I receive these tokens of possession, not as an inherit- 
ance, but as a trust. Let the man come who deserves all 
these our favors, and he shall with equal courage and 
intelligence, be the heir to Lord Dereham.” 

He clapped his hands, and they marched out, leaving 


Luckily there Were Two Keys. 233 

him in prayer. But, either his prayers were short or it 
was a pretense, for almost immediately he sprang up, and 
said to his sister : 

“That is a sadder train than if they had been beaten 
in battle, and lost their cherished commander ! Well, all 
things considered, there is still among them those dis- 
tinguished for courage, wit, gentlehood, and old lineage. 
You might at random set a choice and lose nothing — do 
so, and I vow, by all that is holy, to add to his ownings the 
weal of Earl Dereham, and the rank of Prince of England 
by his alliance with my dear sister.” 

She thanked him in a dull voice. 

“No,” said she, “the heart which loved Ethelwolf will 
turn to no other on earth ! It is a dead coal. All I crave 
of worldly possessions fell to ashes when I learned that 
he could never enjoy them with me.” 

She went out with the gliding step of a specter, yet she 
cast a lingering glance on the bunch of keys on the 
dresser. 

Instead of remaining in her own suit, however, she 
called a lady in attendance and the two repaired to the 
part of the palace where Fleming was lodged. 

He had heard of the death of his patron, but his old 
features were unrecognizable from the deep smile of su- 
pernal content, or, rather, full-rooted anticipation, which 
settled upon them. Princess Margaret did not notice this. 

The alchemist, in his bent to enlist on his side all that 
might influence the king, had been kind to her, “doctor- 
ing” her pet dogs, inventing perfumes, telling her women 


234 Luckily there Were Two Keys. 

valuable secrets about renovating dyes in stuffs, preserv- 
ing furs, and other secrets. 

His room and laboratory were in confusion. Leather 
trunks were almost filled with his odds and ends. 

“You are going on a journey ?” she queried. 

“I have lost in Lord Dereham an excellent patron, but 
he gave me, as if foreseeing his end ” 

“It was premeditated!” said the visitor. 

“A handsome reward for what I have served him in. I 
have the king’s leave, too, and I am going to see my own 
natal place before I return to his side forever.” 

“Can you do me a favor before you go?” 

“I have three days to do your grace anything re- 
quested.” 

“Do you know Dereham?” 

“I — I have been there!” 

“They tell me that Lord Ethelwolf, having laid violent 
hands on himself, has forfeited all privileges of his rank 
and all claims to the Church. That is, though they have 
dispensed with driving a stake through his poor corpse, 
he will be thrown into a hole or a corner, and a few clods 
tossed in upon him, at midnight !” 

“The English have some such rites, or lack of rites, 
handed down from the old times,” orated the old student. 
“The stake was supposed to hold down the body, which, 
otherwise, after the manner of the vampires of Hun- 
garia, would walk about in the night, and ” 

Margaret shuddered. 

“You, father, are a superior man. You have no more 
fear of the Church banning you for snatching away this 


Luckily there Were Two Keys. 235 

poor roll of mortality than of its sad ghost fretting you for 
a kind act. I beg of you, since you know Dereham, to go 
there, inter the body with decency, and return for my 
purse, and my thankfulness !” 

“At Dereham ?” 

“That is to say, Lord Sussex brought a key, not of the 
ancestral vaults where his glorious fathers await the 
trump with no more dread than they did that summon- 
ing them to battle, but of a ruined Priory ” 

“Is it Needington, by chance ?” 

“Yes.” 

“Locked up in the vaults there?” 

“Yes. The key, alas ! is under my brother’s ward, in his 
rooms, but on the sideboard, as I left him !” 

“I do not think that the ragged Priory will offer much 
resistance to me, but yet— I will go say good-by to the 
king and obtain the key ” 

“Under secrecy! for he is incensed against our poor 
lad!” 

“He is incensed for cause, but he does not, luckily, 
know the cause !” 

At another time this enigmatical reply would have per- 
plexed the lady, but she was glad that so far she had 
succeeded in her errand. 

“I am sending all my goods into safe keeping,” re- 
marked the magician. “Yet, there are some things which 
I cannot take away. There,” said he, pointing to a bag, 
“there are feathers worthy to trim a princess’ headgear! 
In there are the pluckings of that rarity accounted unique, 
even by the sages, feathers of the Phoenix.” 


236 Luckily there Were Two Keys. 

“The Phoenix?” repeated she, as if he spoke of a ser- 
aph’s harp being on the wall. 

“Yes, the Phoenix. In my books, there, which I leave 
to your highness, is a memoir by which you will learn 
it is a fiction that it is alone — but, read it, for now time 
rushes me on. I have a great enterprise to enact, which, 
if fruitful, as I do not doubt, will commemorate my 
name! Yea,” continued he, with flaring eyes, from which 
she shrank, appalled, “the Fleming will be heard of down 
the vista of the to-come, like the Seven of Greece !” 

The princess, with curiosity, had untied the thongs of 
the bag, and looked with surprise, but some disappoint- 
ment, on the down and plumes. At not hearing an out- 
burst of delight, the forecaster directed his eyes upon 
her with surprise likewise. 

The pluckings of the bird of paradise were still lustrous, 
but all the gorgeous coloration was gone, and the whole 
was turned into a raven black. 

“Well?” inquired she. 

“Well, death has done this. I had to kill the bird to 
obtain its secret, and its treasure. Those feathers were 
in life as flakes off a rainbow. Yes, death did this.” He 
spoke evenly, though he felt it was an evil omen. 

“So much the better, good wizard !” said she, with mel- 
ancholy satisfaction ; “they will trim my mourning clothes, 
and deck the hearse! But you will get the key, and 
go?” concluded she. 

“I will get the key and use it to redeem that poor body ! 
Ah, but I have the key to redeem the soul which for ages 
has seen its span decrease from the thousand years of 


Luckily there Were Two Keys. 237 

Methusalem to the miserable four-score-and-ten of those 
who are accounted long-lived!” 

Having thrown off his vexation as his visitress could 
not her sorrow, the man of mysteries quitted the place 
with his “Farewell till next meeting !” answered under the 
breath with “Good riddance !” 

But Fleming had no intention to trust himself again 
within the same stone cubes as King Henry, after seeing 
how the powerful favorite had curled up in the torrid 
blast of his enmity. Hiring a steady horse at the Steel 
and Trumpet, St. Martin’s, he rode out to Dereham. 

Fear of incurring the royal malevolence, and the 
Church’s, had already desolated the estate. Not wanting 
a guide, however, the Fleming reached the Priory ruins 
without impediment. In the basement, laid out on a 
tombstone flatly set on some broken columns, was placed 
Lord Dereham. A few old sacks were dragged over his 
body. 

The wise man was a philosopher, but he had no time to 
moralize, albeit the text was prolific. Besides, on the 
spot, a new idea had struck him. 

Most of his craft, dupes of their caprices, sacrificed 
themselves, but the Fleming had some of the phlegm of 
his race. 

“I have the egg,” mused he, feeling within his doublet 
the bezoar-stone, “but common sense prescribes that one 
should experiment on 'the vile body.’ If the test succeeds 
on another man, why, it wifi require but a journey to any 
port where the Eastern ships come in, to get me one or 
two more of these Phoenix eggs or the birds, of which 


238 Luckily there Were Two Keys. 

the shipmen know not the inestimable value. If it fails, I 
shall have saved my life at the expense of a mere car- 
cass 1” 

This was uncomplimentary to his ex-protector, but 
after Dereham’s threat to bring him up into a reopening 
of the Seymour tragedy, he held him in less fervor than 
terror. 

Above all prejudice, he saw in the young man just so 
much flesh and bone and brawn. 

In an age of the body being deemed holy, the few who 
could treat it thus unfeelingly were above scruples. 

From the thought of substituting Dereham for himself, 
to its execution there should be no delay. He put forth 
his unexampled vigor and brought in armfuls of the dry 
boughs and brush. This he heaped about the slab in seven 
heaps, at each uttering jargon meaning something teeming 
with unhallowed sense to him. Only once did he pause 
in his task, when three parts completed. It was to rest 
himself by going up into his loft to pack in a meal sack 
such of his instruments as were portable. He brought 
down with him some useless manuscripts with which he 
would start the blaze. There was also a phial of phos- 
phorous and a stick of brimstone, which furnished the 
light to kindle all. 

At the seven piles he lit up, each having its prayer in 
alchemical cant. 

Only after the flames had struck deep hold and began 
to spread and join in a mantle over the earl, did he be- 
think him that the death had been very happy in time to 
evade the royal jealousy. 


Luckily there Were Two Keys. 239 

“The vibrion in the amber !” exclaimed he, clapping his 
hand to his forehead. “The mystic vorticle!” His feeling 
was between remorse if he should be correct, and that in- 
sensibility of the enthusiast which causes him to lay down 
his time, health, toil and his immortal soul to an aspira- 
tion. “If he be not dead, but sleeping of his gazing on 
that hypnotic particle ? But it is too late !” 

Indeed, the garments were singeing, the hair crisping. 

“Or, rather, all is well ! for the best ! The Phoenix egg 
lies on his breast, and he will renew his life with youth 
and beauty, and high genius, to await his return among 
those he quitted too soon ! He will be the first to enjoy 
the thousand years of the Macrobii, folk who lived a mil- 
lenium ! I envy you, my lord !” 

Spite of this admirable balm to what he retained of 
pity and humanity, he could not bear to see more of the 
cremation. Besides, the heat and smoke drove him away. 

But the heat also affected the man in the trance. He 
sat up, as if pricked in a hundred vital spots, and rolled 
with a rapid movement, as one in the water turning from 
the shark’s rush. He was dazed, but he was inspired by 
his nightmare — he was wrestling with death, which had 
snatched him out of the grip of sleep. In this panic, he 
grappled the astounded alchemist, and, in a trice, the two 
rolled on the floor. The old man’s head struck a corner 
of a tomb, and he fell lifeless out of the other’s clasp. 
Dereham, still confused, only aware that he had escaped 
a dire danger, sprang up, and wildly rushed out of the 
cracking and smoke-filled ruins. A loud crash sounded at 
his heels — the walls were falling in. 


240 Luckily there Were Two Keys. 

Bounding into the thicket of his own park, he fled 
like hunted deer, till he fell, completely exhausted. 

Behind him the fire caught the dry-rotted timbers and 
soon what stood of the Priory became a fire-pit like the 
Parsees’ towers. For thirty miles the flames were seen. 
But no one came to peer into the furnace. Not only had 
the place been haunted, cursed by the banished monks, 
but the odd-colored lights seen at Fleming’s observatory 
at middle-night, and, lastly, the deposit of the repudiated 
remains of the self-slain lord, made it prohibited ground. 

When the place was examined by the daring, they found 
only the few bones of Fleming, with the “Phoenix egg” 
centrally on the pile. They were believed to be Lord 
Dereham’s, with whose forfeited spirit the demon of fire 
must have flown away. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

LIVE AND LOVE ME 1 . 

To distract himself after the mournful departure from 
the court and the world of his favorite, which loss threw 
a gloom over Whitehall, King Henry plunged into the 
business of the preparations for war on land and sea. 

One afternoon, as he was resting his brain, no longer 
capable of such continuous drafts, he was annoyed by 
an usher entering, who begged pardon, but said that a 
peasant maid, showing his own signet, had pestered 
everybody into letting her have admission. His lord had 
forbidden that for everybody, yet she had so insisted that 
he took the daring to venture in with the odd news. 

“This is not Mayday, for me to be capped to by Maid 
Marian !” he said, severely. 

“But your signet, sire!” 

“Oh, yes — you are justified. She may have found this 
jewel! I will see the lass!” 

He mused, without thinking seriously on this odd pre- 
sentment of his token, not a common or oft-duplicated 
gift. 

Dereham had such a favor, Cranmer another, and — he 
had placed the last he wore on the finger of the dead 
woman in Dereham chapel. 

“Where does she hail from?” he asked the usher, who 
was going out. 


242 


Live and Love Me! 


“Dereham Manor!” 

“Ah, send her in !” said he, quickly. “Some goosegirl 
whom Dereham — bah ! She ” 

A woman in peasant dress, with her hood over her 
head, entered humbly enough to suit the attire. 

She stood by the door, which the usher closed. 

“What is the child’s wish ?” asked he, not unpleasantly. 

Coming slowly forward, kneeling without disclosing her 
face, the visitor extended with white hand, which had 
never done harder work than knitting, a ring — his ring! 

“Eh ! Who are you to be bearer of that, here ?” 

As she hesitated to move, he plucked off the hood with 
the cape, and disclosed — Catherine ! He drew himself up 
on his feet, and held back, as if he saw on her fair face the 
death-spot. 

“Catherine ! What does this distortion of nature’s laws 
portend?” he gasped. “Do the dead walk, or can spirits be 
so palpable ?” Mustering up his courage, he thrust out his 
hand, seized her arm, found it far from cold at the con- 
traction, which he then tightened, and, in a changed voice 
of relief, as he raised her, said: 

“It is flesh and blood — elegant and rich as Cyprus 
grape juice! But I believed you lying under the monu- 
mental stone, wrapped in scented linen, pale, freezing as 
an alabaster image ! How is it you are permitted to quit 
the mortuary couch ? Speak, and quickly, or I shall still 
fail to believe ! Say any words that mortals use, and in a 
voice too womanly — too human to keep my heart so con- 
gealed l” 

Convinced by the tone that her steps had led her to 


Live and Love Me! 


243 

the goal of her desires, she smiled a little, but enough to 
inflame a statue, answering in a very womanly voice : 

“Sire, am I the very first creature taken under the 
earth but, being in a swoon, waking in the cerements ?” 

“It has been — but it is called a miracle when happening 
to a woman beautiful and pure and loveable as you ! But 
it is Catherine ! Speak on, and in a livelier strain ! Say 
pleasant things ! Keep the roses on your cheeks far above 
the earth ! Keep the light in your eyes down on us men ! 
That blush, that gleam — but for them, I should yet dis- 
believe. That wiseacre, the Fleming, was not crazed 
when he babbled of resuscitations ! By my faith ! I shall 
love this recreated and recreative woman !” 

“I was told that you told me that you loved me !” 

“That’s roundabout, but it is the truth! But if you 
know that, and that I ” 

“You came to that dead-house, and into the cold cav- 


“Into the cave of despair, true ! Then, this ring ” 

“Was slipped upon a senseless finger. I was told 
whence it came, and, as I am honest, I brought it back !” 

“They may well say luck comes to the slumbering! 
Then, your slumber was profound?” 

“So profound!” and she shuddered and lost her high 
color. 

“You do not remember what happened?” 

“Nothing, and what went before is not a past worth 
harboring, or recalling !” She snapped her fingers scorn- 
fully. “I had no life before that death. It began in the 


244 Live and Love Me! 

grave. I came forth out of the cheerless into the radi- 
ant!” 

Henry listened, as in a dream; no peasant ever spoke 
like this, and with such a voice. He stammered a wish 
to know about her release. 

She showed the key of Dereham chapel. Suddenly, 
tears came to his eyes. He who had ridden over a battle- 
field strewn with untold horrors, and never winced, 
quailed at the thought of what a girl like this must have 
undergone in the dead-house, threading her way in the 
gloom, the only living one amid the lifeless, while none 
without knew that she was there. 

“To wait,” mused he, “in death’s antechamber for the 
relief to come, and to shudder at the approach of his 
brother-ghoul, more awful than himself, hunger!” 

Catherine shivered at the atrocious image called up. 

“Ha, if the king had known that!” cried Henry, pacing 
the room, and beating the wall with his fist each time he 
met it, and had to turn ; “why, here was I in my palace, 
lolling on the cushions, trifling with my wine and giving 
to my dogs the tidbits renounced by a sated palate — and 
this fair, young, desirable woman was wasting away in 
the dark! This half of my hope! This whole of my 
existence ! I complained of the warmth — she froze to her 
granite bed ! I shut my eyes to the tender beams of the 
tapers, while she opened hers, trying to discern one little 
spark of the blessed sun ! I tossed and yearned for sleep 
— she prayed for a break before that eternal rest !” 

At the revived thoughts, she screamed and hid her face 
in her hands, succumbing on the settle. 


Live and Love Me! 


245 


At this, he was afraid that she had gone off into another 
swoon. But he did not call. He opened the window to 
give her air, and the tender light of an English twilight 
bathed her in a lovely beam. But he hoped that she was 
not revived only to be lost again. This time he besought 
her to live for him, though once before his accents had 
been so useless. 

In smoothing her hands, which were warm, the ring 
came off in his palm. 

When she awoke, she was quick to realize all ; that she 
was in the palace with the monarch beside her ! 

“I miss, though, the token the king gave me,” said she. 

“I have it, but it is yours anew to repeat the royal 
promise? The crown and that one and the wand of 
power, they shall be yours as they are mine!” said he, 
speaking as if the trance fell upon him now ; “you shall 
exhaust the wells of luxury and pleasure ! Day after 
day, and night after night, shall be renewed the page- 
ants, shows, balls, minstrelsy, rejoicings, in your honor! 
There have been good queens, and fair queens, but you 
shall be hailed as 'the happy queen !’ ” 

She rose and walked the room with a stately step, as 
if proceeding to the dais to be crowned. In the yard, 
music arose ; it was the minstrels playing out the evening, 
for it was thought the king had supped' alone — since his 
last favorite had gone, in Dereham. 

Catherine looked into the gardens — where a glowworm 
or two shone, but all was dark; like a black snake, the 
moat intersected the grounds. 

Henry came up at her back. 


Live and Love Me! 


246 

“Is that water deep?” said she. 

“The ditch? I suppose so! It flows out betimes into 
the Thames, and that into the sea ! So, my love urges on 
to you ceaselessly.” 

She thrust her hand out of the window, and let the 
key drop. The other did not hear the soft splash, but she 
did. 

“What do you do?” 

“Cast afar all that might have delayed me making you 
happy ! I will be your queen, Harry !” 

She turned, with her countenance so beaming, that he 
threw his arms around her and cried : 

“My queen! Yes, and my love!” 

He stood off, and admired her as a worshiper a new 
idol, replacing the image tarnished, rubbed and dulled by 
time. 

“Await me,” said he, reluctantly; “I shall notify the 
nobles and the bishops ! Before the court and the world, 
England shall see that this time I have chosen the par- 
agon !” 

Catherine stood, vibrating like the aspen after the gust 
has swept by. A fever filled her; she seemed in ether. 
The past was as if it never had been — the present was 
something, and the future was everything. She was 
within the palace, near the throne, and what mattered the 
rest? She had set her foot on the first step, and she 
would mount all those that remained. 

She laughed defiantly, as well as outrageously, think- 
ing that she could now mock even at the king of specters. 
Not even fate could replace her in the cottage, the boat- 


247 




Live and Love Me! 


house, or Dereham Hall or chapel ! The night would 
come when she would dream of more glory on the great 
bed of state, while — ah, her husband! — he would be cast 
out to the dogs and the crows on the wayside — repelled 
by the Church! repelled by the serfs of the new master 
of his estate! All he gave had been but a stepping- 
stone, spurned when she reached the next foothold. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


WOE TO THE LONE,, LORN MAN ! 

Henry kept his word to Catherine. It must be owned 
that Henry kept his promises, as he did his threats — to the 
full. * 

When he exhibited his new conquest to the viewers 
at Hampton Court, in a pageant which the historians do 
not disdain to dwell upon, all granted that his taste had 
not led him astray. 

Enthroned on the gilded barge, or promenading in the 
gardens which the cardinal had stocked with fruit trees 
and flower bushes for this girl to gather, or presiding 
over the banquets, or even leading out in the mask balls, 
all were wonderstruck that the Howard’s spray should 
be for beauty, intelligence and sovereign port, equal to 
their duchess. 

Sussex, who wrote a Monody on Dereham, and who 
returned to his suit for the Princess Margaret, but found 
her mourning impregnable, was traitor enough to sing in 
praise of Catherine; he said that her reign would be one 
long holiday. 

Her rooms at Dereham had been lordly, but the king 
had had their apartments at Whitehall fitted up with all 
the novel fantasies of the Italian designers, beginning to 
produce the wonders of the century. The paintings were 
on panels in the walls ; their colors were fresh and the 


Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 249 

gildings fire-new. The cold work of the Germans and 
Dutch was overridden by Venetian richness and Spanish 
depths. The Venetians contributed glass mirrors super- 
seding the metal ones, and glass vessels equaling the 
Egyptian, and still more varied in hues, sparkled on the 
buffets. 

The walls were hung at the windows and doorways 
with damask and held down by gold cord and bullion 
tassels. Rugs were on the floor and cushions made the 
chairs and seats suitable to one who so loved ease as the 
aging Tudor. 

Queen Catherine, fatigued at last with fetes and galas, 
was enjoying a “nooning,” that is, a siesta , wearing her 
pearl-enriched robe, from which the immense satin train 
was detached. She had retained her gems with that 
miserlike feeling of the upstart, afraid of losing an in- 
stant’s pleasure with them. 

In her reclining chair, she seemed posed for her por- 
trait. 

The king, sitting astride of a backless chair, like one 
on a horse, regarded her with unappeased adoration. 

Suddenly the sleep became broken ; the woman 
dreamed. In her recent visions one figure had constantly 
appeared, and she had no power to exercise it. 

Hideous news had come about the end to the repudi- 
ated body of Ethelwolf. Fire had broken out in the re- 
mains of Needington Priory, supposedly raised by wan- 
derers who had not refrained from plundering the dead 
lord of a few jewels and his clothes, and trying to hide 
their crime in smoke and cinders. Indeed, nothing but 


250 Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 

some calcined bones were left on the blackened stones. 
The walls had fallen in, too; Fleming had not therefore 
been able to accomplish his pious errand, and had not 
troubled to return with the account, only to add to the 
Princess Margaret’s anguish. 

His effects had been sent over to the Continent, and 
no doubt he would join them there; in his village he 
would take care to forget his brief allegiance to the 
King of England. 

“The wary old fox ! He will not return to the collar !” 
said the courtiers. “Once caught, twice shy !” 

Nevertheless, or because of this dreadful end for a 
brilliant nobleman, Catherine had fancied she saw her 
husband in the various stages of her “progress,” as it was 
called. In the forest, she thought she saw on Ethelwolf’s 
horse, Ralph, his graceful figure swinging in the saddle 
and mingling with the chase; in the spectators of her 
dancing, he seemed to gaze through his vizard; on the 
river, he, dressed as an Italian boatman, propelled his 
skiff so as to view her as near as the guards would per- 
mit. 

It was the specter which disturbed her dreams ! 

Though without suspicions, the king muttered to him- 
self : 

“That old Fleming said that if the soul wakes when 
the senses sleep, there is a troubled conscience ! And that 
if one speaks in a low voice to a sleeper so restless, one 
may obtain an answer full of the truth, not always out 
of a mouth open in wakefulness.” 


Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 251 

He had no time to make the experiment, for Catherine 
sprang into life with one bound, crying: 

“No, no ; let me live !” Then, recognizing the watcher, 
she fell on her knees to him, to his surprise, crying in the 
same lamentable voice : 

“Send me not to death ! Have mercy !” 

He forced a laugh, and hastened to comfort her. 

“What is it? Did I prate in my sleep?” 

“No.” 

“If I did — dreams are sisters of folly! What could I 
have said but thanks for your bounty? I am not used 
to sleeping soundly in these magnificent rooms, hailed by 
splendid courtiers, envied by peerless dames, and loved by 
such a man — such a king !” 

“Yes, the man wishes to stay, but as you are now 
awakened of yourself, the king must away — to the coun- 
cil-board.” 

“Pshaw! Let the council wait your good pleasure! 
This state is my rival, of which I am painfully jealous! 
It is a robber of the time my due ! 

“Child !” 

“I love you too well to allow without grudging any one 
a minute ! There, I see I am a deficient queen, to absorb 
you when you have the country to care for!” 

“I only know that you are the most dangerous witch 
that ever deluded a monarch. There was a French king 
who, being mad, had a fond keeper to charm him. By 
George, you will drive me mad! The lion has become 
your poodle! You detain me here while my knights 
are having their iron shells cracked by the mauls of the 


252 Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 

Scotch! But what is the glint of steel when your eyes 
have such sheen? What is the music of lancehead ring- 
ing on buckler to the chant with which you beguile me! 
But to affairs! Farewell! send me away, for I cannot 
bring myself to go!” 

“You may go; but I would go with you!” 

“Nay! since the Empress Matilda, what queen has sat 
at the councils?” 

“Make it the precedent ! I am sure that a woman will 
not be more out of place than your jester! I do not like 
to be alone! I cannot bear to be alone!” 

“I will adjourn the council ! I will decide to go to the 
front — at least, as far as York, where we will spend the 
Christmas merrymakings! We shall not again be long 
parted !” 

On this, she accompanied him to the door and under the 
hanging exchanged a fond parting embrace. She turned 
back, dejected and sorrowful. 

“Merrymaking, in sooth!” said she, sitting on a sofa, 
and letting her hands join. “I shall want to borrow the 
clown’s mask and fasten it on with an inextricable knot! 
Oh, am I to be clogged with this Leviathan at my train 
like a gay vessel which has captured a whale and must 
slack its course to tow it along? Love him that I solely 
dread and abhor? And now a new terror comes! I 
cannot master my mind in sleep ! I shall betray myself — 
I shall with my own lips condemn myself ! I have but to 
let out one word which is ever fluttering in me like a bird 
in a cage, and then — out will be the murder, indeed !” 

This time she saw none of the sweet elves, fays and 


Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 253 

sprites which danced around her in the old barge-house. 
Instead, she was surrounded by demons, fiends, that wore 
scarlet and black, like the executioner, and who carried 
axes instead of prongs and brands. 

“At the same time he is not only dead, this first love, 
and my first husband, but perished — his ashes gone upon 
the breeze ! What a vile passage for a noble of England, 
who refused the crown at the price of a stab in the dark ! 
I was born too late, it seems — I ought to have lived when 
the premier earl was March, not Dereham !” 

It seemed to her that a breath of wind puffed the 
tapestry over there. A door did lead, in previous time, to 
the Princess Margaret’s apartments. She had had it 
closed, locked, sealed up, she thought. 

It might be but a rat. 

She laughed, saying, bitterly: 

“Surrounded by guards, by courtiers, and the people 
beyond, I am trembling at a mouse! It is because all 
around me is false, a sham ! This cheering is the same as 
that hailing Ann Bullen on her way to the Tower; the 
smiles of the parasites are the same as hailed Jane Sey- 
mour an hour before she drank the venomed cup ! The 
protection is that which lets the assassin steal behind the 
warder and dart his dagger into the sleeper. I will sleep 
no more until — oh, for one faithful breast to shield me, 
one true arm to wield the steel in my defence !” 

“Will this do, Catherine?” 

She looked — a hand held out a dagger to her. She 
looked more wildly. A pale-faced, slender man was bow- 
ing to her. 


254 Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 

“Ethelwolf ! Horrors !” she gasped, falling back to the 
farther wall. 

He followed her up. 

“Ethelwolf, alive?” 

“To you only ! We, and Fleming, alone, know that the 
sepulchre has a short pie-crust covering!” 

“Avaunt, this dream!” 

“Dream ! Catherine, you will sleep no more — no more 
will you dream!” 

“A specter !” 

“Yes, Dereham is gone up in smoke, or what is left is 
dust. You have your wish — at least, you are my widow !” 

“What demon stole you from your grave ?” 

“Grave? They denied me a grave! Fleming came to 
give me one, being a heathen who runs counter to the 
divines out of contrary. But he found me caught in my 
own toils. I could not arouse myself after the sleep I had 
bound me with ! He owed me his life — he let me out of 
those supernatural trammels ! But I am a dead man !” 

“Ethelwolf, forgive me,” whispered she, aghast; “put 
up your dagger, or slay me, if we cannot find another way 
out ! Let us fulfill the kindly purpose, the wise one, you 
had at first ! Here I am, the Catherine who loved you ! 
Wrap me up in your cloak, take me out by the secret 
entrance you have used ! Let us hide in the woods, on 
the river, on the sea — beyond the ” 

“It cannot be! That way leads through the Princess 
Margaret’s rooms ! In passing through, I have en- 
gendered her fair fame ; in passing out I should endanger 
her life — her liberty! If through her halls I carried off 


Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 255 

the royal spouse, she would be held guilty of abetting 
me ! Margaret would perish in a dungeon ! Henry con- 
fines his daughters lest they warp the specter from his 
sickly boy! What think you would be the fate of his 
sister, who helped his wife to avoid him !” 

“I am lost!” 

“No, you found your quest — the crown ! But it was 
turned into the tinsel circlet of the Twelfth Night Queen 
— next day — paper, hollow !” 

“I will call, and you, found with dagger drawn on 
the queen, will wear the spiked headband !” 

“Call, and name the assassin ! More truly than you are 
Catherine Howard, I am still Ethelwolf of Dereham !” 

“Leave me, then, forever, to meet my fate alone !” 

“No, Fleming spoke truly — our fates are conjoined and 
more intimately than Catherine’s and Henry’s ! We 
wooed in the same four poor walls ; we shall stand on the 
same small space, which is the scaffold, and we shall sleep 
in the same tomb, not to be removed !” 

“Yes, we are both lost, if the king ” 

“The king? He is at the council deciding who is to 
have my gold and houses and lands !” 

“Do you want them replaced ? You shall have it so.” 

“Yes, you have gold and gifts now in plenty; but, after 
all your aspirations are glutted, have you happiness?” 

“I have none — and no freedom! It’s as dear to the 
sovereign as the slave! Rest content, if you sought re- 
venge! I am so unhappy that if you were still human, 
you would, perforce, pity me !” 

“Yes, the dead may still to the last cherish pity — for 


2 56 Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 

they are happier than the living! A queen? She is a 
messenger of the gods who had her box filled with every- 
thing but happiness! You spilt out all else to the 
couriers !” 

“Ingrates, who now play the spy ! who wish me ousted 
that their choice shall displace the king’s ! No, they 
would not side with me if I called them ! They wish me 
dead ! Oh, that the glass of time could be reverted and 
that we were again in the cottage, and you were my loving 
Ethelwolf !” 

“I was not your happy Ethelwolf, then ! I was care- 
worn and you gay ! You took up the lute, and he took up 
a harp, and you sang of the fair peasant who ” 

She made a gesture that there must be no noise, with 
twenty ears pricked up in the outer room. 

“Without the music, the song-text came about; the 
Elfrida was a queen!” 

“Yes, she is queen,” sadly said Catherine. 

“She omitted one thing — she forgot to say she was 
plighted to a ‘forest-wight.’ And there was a law — at 
any rate, there is a law, that any spouse of the king, 
betrothed to another, would thereby merit death!” 

“Death !” she paled like wax. “But if the forester hid 
the deception, he would be an accomplice, and die the 
death likewise!” 

“Tush ! What is death to a loving, jealous man, if be- 
fore him he knows the tease has gone to her doom ?” 

“Can one be sure of anything now?” 

“No! time was when a man went to sleep with the as- 
surance of the woman he loved coming to awaken him, 


Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 257 

and he was not left to die of hunger, decay, and a fire 
breaking out over him. But in those days man loved 
woman as no woman loves man nowadays !” 

“Yes, she loves the same!” she implored. 

“Then she, too, will be very ill repaid!” 

“I love you, so I should not send you hence !” 

“Send me hence! You have lost all power over me! 
You have passed into another’s arms ! You have let those 
lips receive another’s kisses ! You must die, as I must 
die!” 

There was a trumpet flourish. The king had broken 
up the council. He would be coming here at once. She 
stared as if struck a blinding lash. Found together, they 
would be slain. 

“As ‘the forester’ would not leave the fair Elfrida,” con- 
tinued the intruder, with provoking slowness, and an in- 
fernal smile, “the king came and found ” 

“If the door were fastened ” But Dereham closed 

his hand on her arm and she was held as in the stocks. 
“There is no closed door to royalty !” 

They heard steps — then marked those of the unwieldly 
monarch. The steps stopped at the door. With polite- 
ness, for the room was thronged with courtiers, a voice 
said : 

“It is I, my Catherine !” 

“Whereupon,” proceeded Ethelwolf, raising his tone, 
“hearing voices ” 

“Voices!” ejaculated Henry, in a rage. “Open! This 
lady is not alone !” 

While he looked around for an explanation at hand for 


258 Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 

this singularity, Catherine was repulsed by the earl, who 
said to himself, “Now, Master Harry, it is your turn to 
have a twinge of that pretty little complaint which, called 
jealousy, has acuteness to which the gout is a gnat sting !” 

Impatient, the king struck the door with his foot. 
Ethelwolf bounded to it, locked it, barricaded it, and left 
the room by the other way. In passing the stupefied 
woman, he had deigned a look; it meant that they might 
meet again! 

If he had left his dagger, she might at that moment of 
intensity have stabbed herself. She was as one dead when 
Henry entered. 

He had called up halberd and axes; he had seized a 
mace from a daunted hand and shivered the panels. They 
came in, as at a siege, he shouting, his face flaming: 

“Break up the door! Ha! would you withstand the 
king ?” 

The king looked around. At his feet the fainting 
woman — no one beside her. But a shattered lute ; a man’s 
cap — a chair overturned. He questioned her in a voice 
of which the syllables ran on in confusion. 

“I am alone,” breathed she, rising, unaided. 

He had let the guards withdraw in consternation, fear- 
ing they would be blamed for they knew not what. 

“Does this cap belong to the head of nobody?” de- 
manded he, in a derision not known to her before. 

“I do not know it.” 

“I do! It is the Fleming’s!” He let his ardor cool, 
his eyes dull, and his frame ceased to quiver. It was the 
astrologer’s cap. This abatement lent her hope. 














Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 259 

“The astrologer’s ?” she said ; then, quickly, she added, 
“yes, he ” 

“Do not say that he was here! His packs went off 
by the carrier ! He is on the sea — he is abroad !” 

“He pretended that ! He was afraid — yes, afraid that 
he was involved in your displeasure because Lord Dere- 
ham was his immediate patron. He was here!” 

“He was here ? For what was Fleming here, unknown 
to me?” 

“I wished to consult him — to pierce the future! He 
has told me so much incredible which none the less came 
true that I wanted to ask him if I — if I were to be mother 
of kings !” 

Henry drew a long breath. Enraptured, he wished to 
be deceived. 

It was natural. It flattered him, too. 

“If this were so, the Fleming would not have fled ” 

He wandered around the room as a lion from whom a 
prey had escaped searches for it. He saw a scrap of 
cloth flap in the secret door to the condemned way — he 
saw a bright speck glitter in the lock! He looked nar- 
rowly. Some one had shut the'slide so quickly that it had 
nipped a piece out of his sleeve ! Some one had broken a 
dagger-point in the lock so as to fix the wards beyond 
turning. 

“Fleming does not wear Utrecht velvet ! Fleming does 
not break a Florentine poniard to fasten doors !” he 
growled. 

He thought he had smoothed his face, but Catherine 
read all his savagery in his eyes. 


260 Woe to the Lone, Lorn Man! 

“It was Fleming who was here!” she stoutly main- 
tained. 

“It was Fleming, eh ?” Then his kind master will recall 
Fleming !” 

“Yes, find him !” 

“Only, if Fleming be not found, Fleming will not be 
true! And if Fleming be not found, you, also, will be 
false! In that case, Catherine, prepare to go before the 
tribunal which tried Ann Bullen !” 


CHAPTER XX. 


IN WHICH THE QUEEN'S MAJESTY FINDS A CHAMPION AND 
THE KING'S JUSTICE ANOTHER. 

Fleming, it is superfluous to state, was not to be found 
“by all the king’s men.” 

The trial took place in the council-room where Cath- 
erine had expressed her wish to set the innovation of as- 
sisting without being a regent. 

The king himself accused her. He averred that he had 
heard a man’s voice, unrecognizable, in the private apart- 
ment; that some one in his hurried flight had left a frag- 
ment of cloth in a door, and that a fine dagger had been 
broken off in a lock. The princess’ attendants swore 
that they had seen no one use the passageway, which, for 
that matter, had been shut up since the queen came. The 
princess was not produced in evidence. She was, in spite 
of her gentleness, believed not to love the new mistress, 
but she was deemed incapable of conspiring against her. 

This insinuation that Margaret had in some way cov- 
ered the introduction of a stranger to injure the queen, 
cut Sussex to the quick. He interrupted the proceedings 
several times, but rather to defend his avowed “princess” 
than the prisoner. 

In sum, the king’s own deposition let it be inferred that 
to contradict his denunciation was to give him the lie. 

Queen Catherine had maintained an attitude of quiet, 


262 


Finds a Champion. 


and her countenance, always beautiful, was almost saintly 
as she seemed to beg mercy rather than justice. 

When called upon for her reply, she spoke with abject 
submission. She seemed as one foredoomed to be struck 
with a meteor and knew that to avoid it was impossible. 
She asserted that it was the Fleming who had visited her, 
but, having some strong motive to keep his retention in 
England a secret, had fled like a thief. 

As there were old peers who believed in forecasts and 
who had horoscopes of the Flemings preserved in their 
deed-boxes like titles, here she struck a sympathetic chord. 

“My lords,” said the irrepressible Sussex, “this Fleming 
is like John Neville’s dog; his obedience could be counted, 
for he always ran away when his master called !” 

This elicited the one laugh in the sinister proceedings. 
“The house being sufficiently informed,” was about to 
retire for deliberation when Sussex again intervened. 

The king made a sign and the sergeant-at-arms was 
about to lay his hand on him. 

“My lords,” began the young noble, giving the partisan 
so severe a look that he was petrified, “as my conscience 
forbids me to take part in a consultation of which I see 
the outcome in advance, a fatal judgment — there will be 
shame or blame on all of us ! I leave in my stall the 
insignia of my rank” — he doffed his cap of precedence 
and threw off his fur-trimmed robe, continuing, “leagued 
to me these four hundred years by my fathers who have 
sat here ! Henceforth, I form no part or portion of this 
august assembly, and I am here but a man among the 
many, a knight among brother chevaliers, but being of the 


Finds a Champion. 263 

commons of England, I judge the judges and I may 
quash their unjust sentence !” 

All referred to the king, the supreme arbiter, especially 
at such a desertion. 

“Well, my Lord of Sussex,” said the king, “we accept 
your resignation ! There is, thank God, no more lack of 
knights to become worthies than of honorable judges!” 

The judges “retired,” hibernically — that is, they kept 
their places while all others were compelled to leave the 
hall. In going out, between the Countess of Rokesby and 
the Duchess of Norfolk, the queen said that she relied on 
her prayers touching the judges’ hearts. All this was 
tender and piteous, but a bolder front would have been 
more deeply impressive. 

The debate was not long arid no one took the volunteer 
office of interruption since Sussex had withdrawn. The 
court was again opened and the queen reappeared, paler 
than before. This time she stood up to hear the judg- 
ment. 

Catherine Howard was pronounced guilty of deceit in 
the marriage vow, and of adultery, and ordered to be 
conducted from her place of abode, not named, to the yard 
of the tower of London for her head to be struck off from 
her body ; this to be done within three days.” 

“Three days to bless my God, and — grieve for my ex- 
ecutioners,” she said. 

The king seemed to avoid being prominent at this 
close, and he was going to withdraw in some haste as the 
lord chief justice said: 

“The session is over!” 


264 


Finds a Champion. 


“Hold ! Not yet !” interposed Sussex. 

Again everybody looked at the king to have him outrule 
this pestilent meddler. 

“Ha! What is this? Do you gainsay this decree ?” 
queried Henry, frowning. 

“Not a word, since I foresaw it !” 

“Not being a member of the body delivering the decree, 
you have no grounds for caviling at it !” 

“That is true. I arp no longer a member of the tri- 
bunal, but I am still Lord of Sussex. I laid aside my cap 
and my mantle, but I still hold my knightly sword and 
lance. It is to them I appeal, if allowed, against the 
verdict rendered.” 

He went over to Catherine and knelt to her. Her ladies 
looked up, but sobbed ; she looked up but smiled on him — - 
the rarity under the Tudor of this knight who served re- 
duced dignity and befriended the distressed. 

“Lady and queen, I know that I offer but a young and 
feeble arm,” were his words, “but your position is so 
desperate, madam, that even this mr / be receivable !” 

“Are you my only hope ! hope, when I am condemned ?” 

“Yes, madam, but you have three days in which to ap- 
peal from human decisions to God’s. And if you deign 
to take as champion the man at your feet, he will promise 
to proclaim your innocence! He will uphold it with his 
sword as well as with his words — or better !” 

He looked over to Archbishop Cranmer, and said, in a 
clear voice : “Is not this what a Christian knight is bound 
to do?” 


Finds a Champion. 265 

Cranmer could be fair, even when he was curbed by 
seeking his own ends ; he replied in the affirmative. 

Catherine hesitated. For if the battle were fatal to this 
youth ? 

“It will please the Princess Margaret/’ whispered he. 
“She does not wish another bloodstain on this reign !” 

Still she hesitated. 

“I was the comrade of Ethelwolf,” whispered he, still 
lower. 

She had no idea that he knew or rather had divined 
this secret. Alas, a jealous lover can ferret out anything. 
On discovering that Dereham did not love the princess, 
Sussex had sought farther to learn whom he did love. He 
had guessed very shrewdly. 

Catherine rose, as much to hide her sudden confusion 
as for other reason. 

“My lords,’’ she said, in a steady voice, for hope in- 
spirited her just as the mention of Ethelwolf had brought 
the blood to her brow. “I appeal to the eternal judgment- 
seat from yours ! I claim the ordeal of battle and I choose 
the Earl of Sussex as my champion !” 

Sussex rose to his feet with an eloquent look of thanks. 
He was sure that he had pleased the princess. He went 
to the middle of the hall and spoke in a vigorous voice : 

“I, Charles, Earl of Sussex, to all present and who may 
come, I present myself to uphold with lance, sword and 
dagger, against all Satan may urge to the contrary, that 
our Queen Catherine has been injuriously dealt with by 
the House of Lords, forming a court royal, and that 


266 Finds a Champion. 

of the crimes of which she is accused, she is in all points 
free and pure !” 

There was a scuffle at the bar, crowded on the opposite 
of the peers with officials, lawyers and persons merely 
curious. Out of their midst, to their own high astonish- 
ment, issued a penetrating and forcible voice, making the 
roof thunder back: 

“Sussex, you have lied !” 

All fell aloof from this daring speaker. A grim and 
forbidding apparition was standing in their midst, like the 
champion of Satan whom Sussex had asserted to be the 
queen’s enemy. He was clad in half-armor of blue steel, 
chased and inlaid with gold or silver, but for the occasion 
the bright adornment was blacked out. On his head was 
a close cap of steel, also blackened, with cheek-pieces, and 
the vizor coming down between the eyes to meet a chin- 
piece with a point. Nothing but the eyes could be seen, 
and they were just sparks of brightness — more animal 
than human. 

By those eyes Catherine knew it was the demon who 
ever would haunt her. 

The king peered down on this figure with wonder, if 
not the awe which chilled others. He could not guess 
who should champion his cause, but none but a friend 
could offer to impress the condemnation on the faithless 
queen. 

“I accept the ordeal for the prosecution!” said he. 

“There shall be an inclosed camp,” continued Henry 
raised his hand and imposed silence, while staying the 


Finds a Champion. 267 

sergeant-at-arms from making the stranger uncover his 
head for the respect of the house. 

“There shall be an inclosed camp,” continued Henry, 
with formal voice, “and the marshals shall see that the 
combatants are made ready for the encounter. The night 
is yours, gentlemen,” said he to the opponents, “and use it 
well, for before another, one of you will appear before the 
judgment-seat! Tricastle,” said he, to the governor of 
the tower, “convey your charge.” 

“May she see her confessor ?” 

“She will not confess !” returned the king. “Briefly, I 
know her — but still I know her well ! She may confer 
with her champion, though.” 

“Meanwhile, allowed to retain his disguise, the stranger 
defender of the king held out his hand to the champion 
of the queen. Sussex hesitated, but obeyed to the usage. 

“To-morrow!” said he. 

“To-morrow decides !” said the other. 

In vain the young lord beat his brains to recall this 
voice. He said to himself: 

“How odd ! That grasp was warm and as a friend’s ! 
Now, who can be her foe who is my friend?” 


CHAPTER XXL 


CONCLUSION. 

The rooms of the imprisoned queen at the Tower had 
been altered in their furnishing against her return. They 
were hung with black. The light of day was shut out of 
the small windows in the thick walls. Candles burned as 
in a mourning chapel, and a praying stand was con- 
spicuous in the midst. The ladies in attendance had taken 
their last leave, for the news having come that Lord Sus- 
sex had been overthrown by the sinister defender of the 
royal and noble judgment, they knew that all hope was 
over. 

But their mistress clung to it. She received Cranmer 
with effusion, confident that he would bear respite, if not 
pardon. 

He came in his black satin chimar, with black ties to 
his white lawn sleeves. He had black shoes, and his face 
was solemn and pitiful. 

“My daughter/’ said he, surprised, “how can such a 
smile be on your face — how can you be hopeful when I 
who have last seen the king bring no alleviation of your 
doom ?” 

“Do you think that he is softening ?” 

“God holds a king’s heart in His hand ! It may melt — 
but it requires time!” 

“That is good !” said she, animated indescribably. 


Conclusion. 


269 

“In what way good, since the hour is fixed for six 
o’clock?” 

“But if the execution does not — cannot take place?” 
asked she, using the word bluntly. 

“What can prevent the culprit meeting the execu- 
tioner?” were his words, in surprise. 

“The executioner might fail to meet the culprit !” 

Cranmer shook his head. This woman was cunning 
as witching; but he could not understand. 

“This is the beginning of my confession, so you must 
not betray,” said she, with serious archness, and using 
a guarded voice. “There can be no execution without the 
executioner. Did you meet him? Well, he was going 
out. By this time he would be beyond London wall.” 

“Strange ! to you providential !” 

“Humanly conceived — I have paid him with my last 
gem to make away with himself !” 

“Commit self-murder ! This is a great woman !” 

“No, put himself to a distance, so I have time to write 
to the king and you shall bear the letter !” 

“I ? Well, yes — and you may use my tablets.” 

She was going to write when a bell rang. They both 
started, as if guilty together. The trumpets blew. Then, 
that gun was fired to which at least once before King 
Henry in his palace had listened, because it denoted that 
his doomed queen was to be divorced by the steel. 

Such was the silence that they heard out on the Tower- 
green under the eaves of St. Katharine without, the voice 
of the city of London’s crier, bellowing without pause or 
inflection : 


270 


Conclusion. 


“Hear ye, people of the tower bounds and the city, 
know ye that the king’s constable, learning that at the 
hour of execution the state executioner is missing — and 
being forced not to delay the execution of the sentence in' 
hand, offers to whosoever will take his place the sum of 
twenty pounds honest money and pardon for any offence 
he may lie under danger of less than high treason ! Long 
live the king and the city of London !” 

Catherine looked at the prelate with blanched face. 

“You hear? I was right. No one will take that post." 

“But it is tempting. There are offenders who, to save 
their limbs ” 

“Let me write, then — oh, my head— that interruption 
has driven me distraught! If you would supply the 
words ” 

“Nay, you know better than I — to mold the king! 
Hasten to write something — anything ” 

She began her last appeal, literally at the foot of the 
scaffold, for the door, ajar, since not even an archbishop 
is trusted in a prison, a man in black and red, wearing a 
black mask with a crape fringe, appeared. An exhala- 
tion, as it were, made Catherine drop the pencil and rise. 

“Do you see that man, father?” she uttered. 

“Are you ready, madam ?” asked the stranger, who was 
no stranger to either, though not announced. 

Catherine trembled. It was Ethelwolf’s voice, and she 
had forgot him ! She placed herself on the farthest side 
of the prelate, who, recovering, whispered: 

“Can you not prevail over him, too?” 


Conclusion. 271 

“Over him? As well over his block !” she returned, 
despairingly. 

“This being so, daughter, leave with me the avowal 
of your faults, and let me save the soul since I cannot the 
body.” 

“I cannot speak! I can remember nothing!” faltered 
she. 

“But I remember all, my lord, and I can tell you !” said 
the intruder. 

“You! How can this man know?” demanded the as- 
tonished priest. 

“As well as my Maker !” said Catherine, bowing her 
head. 

“This is what she might confess if she could confess 
with truth,” said the volunteer deathsman; “this woman 
was poor and parentless when a man discovered her as a 
violet under the stones and moss. He appreciated her 
purity, beauty and worth, and placed her in a precious 
vase to be admired, to be cherished above all. To be 
wholly her worshiper, he forsook his friends, his king’s 
favor and the hand of a royal princess! Is this true, 
Catherine ?” 

Her sob was ample answer. 

“To defend her, he had made her his wife. To defend 
his wife, he let himself be despoiled of title, riches and 
home! His life alone remained. This he placed at her 
beck, and she turned away because a crown and palace 
were offered her. She could have let him out of his tomb, 
more a prison than this prison-house, but she tossed away 


272 


Conclusion. 


the key and left to another his release from the crudest 
of imaginable deaths. Is this true, Catherine?” 

“Still it is true !” said she, kneeling. 

“To become a queen, she made herself a widow ! You 
have seen her on the throne, calling her mate husband 
and beloved! Well, she deceived that king, second hus- 
band and beloved ! A king can avenge himself with the 
sword of justice. She was condemned by his judges. 

“Then a young and brilliant spirit rose to defend her, 
and she who should have resigned herself to a just doom, 
revolted, and let him go into the field to fight her battle ! 
She took his life as she had taken her first lover’s hap- 
piness and her second lover’s honor ! Sussex, good, gen- 
erous and gay, may die from the sword of justice which 
she was cajoling your lordship with hope to elude!” 

“It is all true !” said she. 

“So, absolve her, priest, and hasten, for the people are 
waiting and the arm suspended over her is eager to fall !” 

He tore down a fold of black cloth and showed himself 
at the barred window. By the mask and garb he must 
have been recognized as far as his office betrayed itself, 
for there rose the mock cheer with which the mob hails 
one they fear and yet admire. 

The archbishop extended his hands over the bent head 
and made the sign of utter pardon. 

It had set in dark. Torches were lighted as well within 
as along her way and on the green. 

When the procession came forth, a stentorian call was 
made for hats to be taken off — “To the queen!” and 
another call was made for prayers. Cranmer accom- 


Conclusion. 


273 


panied her to the foot of the stage. As she knelt at the 
block, he noticed, so sharp are faculties in these supreme 
hours that, instead of saying: “Lord, into Thy hands I 

commend ” she said: “Lord, it is just that I should 

receive doom at these hands !” 

It was then that the ax came down. 

The dust was still circling, the blood was still gushing, 
when the executioner flung aside his mask and cried, in 
a terrible voice: 

“Register of the Tower, your scroll was read “Cath- 
erine Howard and her accomplices ! Now, carry out your 
sentence in full upon Catherine Howard’s husband before 
the royal marriage, Ethelwolf of Dereham!” 


EPILOGUE. 


King Henry married again ! He consoled himself with 
the mature graces and was enlivened by the pious argu- 
ments of Lord Latimer’s widow, Catherine Parr. As he 
had said, his marital life was regaled with “Kates.” This 
was one fated to escape what had become to be set as the 
inevitable doom — she outlived him. 

He was in the fifty-sixth year, only, of his age, and 
had ruled nearly forty years; yet with as much learning 
in physicians as there were in charlatans, like Fleming, 
he might have been then but in the prime of a king’s life. 

Swollen and abhorrent from the marks of sensualism, 
his deathbed was shunned by all. No courtier, no syco- 
phant whom he had enriched, none of the women still 
watching for the indefatigable Parr to give a moment in 
which to be thrown the sultan’s handkerchief, no church- 
men even to whom he had handed over the spoils from 
the papal domain in England — none stood by his thorny 
pillow. 

Sure that he could not recover, Seymour, of Hertford, 
soon to be Lord Protector Duke of Somerset, on whom 
would devolve the regency for young Prince Edward, 
sent in haste for Archbishop Cranmer, who owed to his 
sovereign the success of Wolsey. 

When Cranmer came, he walked through the deserted 
palace at Croydon. In the room where Sii William Wal- 
worth, mayor of London, who killed the rioter, Wat Tyler, 


Epilogue. 275 

may have feasted with the king, whose realm he saved, the 
monarch was lying like a dead thing. 

Only one mourner was by his bed. A monk of some 
strict order, for he wore a sackcloth and had bare feet, 
with a shaven head under the cowl, knelt by. 

The monk rose at the prelate’s entrance. 

“It is useless,” said he. “He who raised you to pre- 
eminence will exalt none more! He will appear before 
the Bench to be arraigned for judging to the death Ann 
Bullen, and my Catherine !” 

“Your Catherine !” echoed the primate, astounded. 

The monk threw back his cowl. 

“Lord Dereham !” 

“Yes, whom the London mob spared for executing the 
king’s decree and punishing my faithless wife! You 
should not have come on a bootless errand ! The king is 
past your ministration. Absolve me !” 

The archbishop extended his hands, and uttered the 
benediction; it was shared between the sovereign, who 
never spoke more, and Ethelwolf, who had forgiven all 
before he asked for forgiveness. 

Cranmer perished at the pyre, in the reign of the san- 
guinary Mary. 

At the great defeat of the Scots, under the Protectorate, 
at Pinkey, when the route of the fugitives was marked for 
five miles with the dead and wounded, a gray monk was 
seen to follow this way, relieving the wounded, taking the 
last words of the dying, unmoved by the still whizzing 
arrows and the thunder of the field cannon. A High- 
lander, misunderstanding his intention, speaking no lan- 


276 Epilogue. 

guage understood by those around him, in his delirium, 
stabbed this ministering angel while he held out a helmet 
full of water to him. Thus Dereham died, afar from his 
crumbled castle and his divided estate. 

In the English local guidebook of the last century may 
be found a paragraph like this : 

“NEEDINGTON PRIORY.— Picturesque from be- 
ing mantled in ivy. At Malhanger House, property of 

Sir Wm. W ley, is a private museum to which there is 

free access. It contains, among Roman and other curiosi- 
ties found in the neighborhood, a large, oval-shaped ani- 
mal secretion called a bezoar-stone, formerly, and by the 
common people, ‘a firestone' ( lucnscinon Incendo ), as it 
has the property, in popular belief, of quenching fire in 
its immediate vicinity. It was found in the Needington 
ruins, on removal of wallstones for building the New- 
church lychgate, among bones, supposed human, and 
traces of a great fire, intact. The remains are accredited 
to the last Earl Dereham, circa 1520- '40, a favorite for a 
brief term of the wayward King Henry VIII., and in- 
cluded in the arraignment of Queen Catherine Howard, 
for the crimes for which she was beheaded in the Tower. 
The earl was supposed to have committed suicide to avoid 
his master’s ill pleasure.” 


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usually trouble brewing. Nor is the story 
which Mr. Bishop has to tell an exception. 

His hero is a manly New Yorker, who is 
fired with a zeal to “make good” a defalca- 
tion accredited to his dead father .... 

In quest of gold he visits Mexico and 
there meets a dreamy-eyed maid who 
straightway gives him first place in her 
heart. But an American girl has already 
won his love. It is a pathetic situation and 
if one true woman’s heart breaks before the 
man’s mission is ended who is to blame? 

There are many touching incidents in the 
book, but none more full of pathos than 
when the woman who loves bares her soul 
to the woman who is loved 

i2mo., Cloth. Price, $1.00. 


STREET AND SMITH, New York and London 



EERIE TALES OF “CHINATOWN.” 

t s of.... 
oken China 

By WILLIAM E. S. FALES 


A collection of captivating novelettes deal- 
ing with life in New York’s “Chinatown.” 

The struggles and ambitions of the China- 
man in America, his loves and jealousies, 
his hopes and fears, his sorrows, his joys, 
these are the materials on which Mr. Fales 

has built his book 

It is a new field, and all the more inter- 
esting on that account. The author has 
made a life study of his subject ; apd no one 
is better qualified than he to present a picture 
of this romantic corner of New York where 

lives the exiled Chinaman 

“Bits of Broken China” is undoubtedly 
one of the most delightful volumes for lighter 
reading published this season ...... 

Bound in cloth. Gold top. Fully Illustrated 

Price, 7? Cents. 

STREET AND SMITH, New York and London 




THE MOST POPULAR OF GAMES. 


PING PONG 

AND 

HOW TO PLAY IT 

By M. G. RITCHIE, of the International Games Club, 
and ARNOLD Parker, Winner of the Queen’s 
Hall Ping Pong Tournament. 

Edited for American Players 
by WALTER H. BRONSON, 

Ping Pong Expert 


This is an entirely new work on this 
popular game, brought down to date, and 
containing many valuable suggestions on 
new strokes and new positions. It is illus- 
trated with many diagrams and is adapted 
for the expert as well as the beginner. A 
book every American player of this game 
should possess 

i8mo., Silk Cloth. Price, 50 cents. 


1 


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